learning-styles

LSRC reference Section 9
page 134/135
Professional choice – which intervention
to choose?
Before making any change in practice, professionals
are duty-bound to consider two possibilities: first,
that the proposed change may make matters worse;
and second, that some alternative change may be
more beneficial than their preferred option. Moreover,
professionals need to operate with an explicit and
tested model of change before they introduce any
innovation. We have discussed at length the potential
for the allocation of a learning style to turn into
a learning handicap. We also wish to discuss the range
of options currently open to tutors and trainers in the
post-compulsory sector because these professionals
are not faced with the simple choice of accepting
or rejecting learning styles. On the contrary, they are
faced with a panoply of possible interventions, all with
their supporters and attendant evidence.
As Hattie (1999) has argued, most innovations have
positive effects on students’ achievement, so we
need estimates of the magnitude of the impact –
namely, effect sizes as well as statistical significance.
Post-16 learning is currently subjected to a series
of pressures from policy initiatives, financial directives,
institutional change strategies, qualifications and
awarding bodies, the inspectorate, CPD, and student
demands. Into this highly stressful environment, the
case for responding to the different learning styles
of students is already being pushed by managers
in further education under the need for ‘differentiation’.
According to one FE lecturer, the new buzzword
of ‘differentiation’ is being used ‘to maintain pressure
and perpetuate the feeling that things are not
being done properly: that teachers are inadequate’
(Everest 2003, 49).
The meta-analysis of educational interventions
conducted by Hattie (1999) can help us form
a judgement on what to do next. His painstaking
research indicates that the effect sizes for different
types of intervention are as shown in Table 43
(extracted from Hattie 1999).
It seems sensible to concentrate limited resources
and staff efforts on those interventions that have the
largest effect sizes.
The case for learning styles will also have to compete
with arguments in favour of, say, thinking skills,
or peer tutoring, or learning identities, or formative
assessment, or critical intelligence or any one
of a host of options. We willl explore briefly the claims
which could be made for two approaches which are
competing with learning styles for research funds –
namely, metacognition and formative assessment.
With regard to the first competitor, we refer in
Section 8 to Bruner’s (1996) advice to introduce
tutors, trainers and students to different conceptions
of learners’ minds. His advice could perhaps be
accommodated by including it in the standard definition
of metacognition – that is, the ability to set explicit,
challenging goals; to identify strategies to reach
those goals; and to monitor progress towards them.
Table 43
Effect sizes for different
types of intervention
Intervention
Reinforcement
Student’s prior cognitive ability
Instructional quality
Direct instruction
Student’s disposition to learn
Class environment
Peer tutoring
Parental involvement
Teacher style
Affective attributes of students
Individualisation
Behavioural objectives
Team teaching
Effect size
1.13
1.00
1.04
0.82
0.61
0.56
0.50
0.46
0.42
0.24
0.14
0.12
0.06