For several decades, we have been categorised into types of learners, depending on the way we learn and understand theories best. When President Trump took office in 2016, he insisted that his daily briefings be delivered to him through pictures and graphics because he is a visual and auditory learner. As a result, written documents on military deals to welfare plans were all converted into a series of images to suit the new President’s understandings. On paper, the task seemed farfetched, but the popular theory of “learning styles” would beg to differ.
The idea of “learning style” was first recognised as early as 334 BC by Aristotle, who believed that “each child possessed specific talents and skills”, and so different children understood, learned and retained information in different ways. This belief led to multiple researches in the 20th century.
One researcher, Lev Vygotsky, in 1978, came up with the theory that a child’s social environment plays the biggest role in its ability to understand and perceive subjects. It’s easier for a child to remember the history of the Harlem Renaissance if its cultural background helps it relate to the issue. On the other hand, theorist Jean Piaget believed that cognitive development is universal across cultures. And so a child’s development is more influenced by its own independent experiences. This means the child will better remember the concept of speed and distance by playing ball with his friends.
These theories have increasingly shaped learning pedagogies in schools, forcing institutions to tailor their curriculum to suit students’ learning styles. A lot of importance is placed on teachers’ understandings of their students’ styles, making it an integral part of the former’s evaluations. Even students have been convinced that they belong to a certain section of learners. They’re of course more than happy to believe in it because there’s a certain comfort in falling into a category. Unlike old school systems where children who couldn’t follow the medium of instruction felt left out of the smart lot, the learning styles idea gives them the satisfaction of fitting into something.
And who doesn’t like to fit in? It’s psychological. It’s another “I” statement they can use to define themselves in a box.
But the truth is, there’s very little empirical evidence that supports the idea of learning styles. In fact, considering the widespread popularity of the idea, astoundingly few studies support it, while far more show that people generally perform better when they’ve learned something in the style that best fits the subject matter.
This means that it is the subjects that need to be categorised under learning styles, not the students. Let’s take the popular poem “I am a teapot” for example. World over, students learn the poem by enacting a teapot, one hand on the waist and the other as a spout. Even a verbal learner must have learnt this poem kinaesthetically. On the contrary, students can’t truly learn Shakespeare through kinaesthetic instruction. Similarly, it’s nearly impossible for an auditory learner to learn geometry by simply listening to someone explain the Pythagoras theorem (without seeing the diagrams). If that were the case, geometry podcasts would have been a popular thing. And then there are some things, as Piaget pointed out, like driving, that can only be learnt through experiences. You obviously wouldn’t get into a car with someone who's never touched a gear before, even if he has read all about it in a comprehensive book.
Another problem of learning styles is that it goes by the assumption that people know themselves very well and are able to responsibly place themselves into a category. Or that the tests created to assess people’s learning styles are highly reliable. It fails to take into consideration social factors like peer and parental pressure or low self-esteem that may drive people to lie on the tests or about their preferred instructional styles. The mere existence of the “concept of ideal” would force kids and adults alike to want to fall into that category. Let’s say, for example, the most popular girl in your class is a social learner, or that that handsome classmate in a boy band is an auditory learner. The desire to earn the approval of such peers may drive you to convince yourself of the wrong category.
If you think these are just problems students face in school, then you’re missing the point of how it affects development and success in later years. Because of the style myth, students grow up getting comfortable in a single style, thus hampering them incapable of learning something that doesn’t fit into that style. A direct victim is their career.
For example, a law aspirant must be comfortable with words. No one wants a lawyer who went to kinaesthetic law school. This Isn't Legally Blonde (unless the judge is a fan of dramatics). Likewise, a good manager can’t be too rigid on solitary learning. And if the person fails to meet the learning requirements of their selected careers, it could lead to frustration and low confidence.
Thus, schools revamping their instructional approach, whether it’s visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, or some combination, should depend on the subject — not the student. It’s a better way to educate than labeling kids for life.
Learning is like the 7-course buffet table where the most fulfilling experience of the meal can only be achieved when education, sociology, psychology, and behaviour meet coherently.
