Neil Fleming

This created a fourth mode, Read/write and brought about the word VARK for a new concept, a learning-preferences approach, a questionnaire and support materials.

He created the VARK test based on prior experience and by working with students and teachers at Lincoln University.

Their conclusion was: “Although the literature on learning styles is enormous,” they “found virtually no evidence” supporting the idea that “instruction is best provided in a format that matches the preference of the learner.” Many of those studies suffered from weak research design, rendering them far from convincing.

Others with an effective experimental design “found results that flatly contradict the popular” assumptions about learning styles.

In sum, “The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing”.