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LSRC reference Section 9 page 136/137 As a result, as Sternberg has argued: ‘the literature has failed to provide any common conceptual framework and language for researchers to communicate with each other or with psychologists at large’ (2001, 250). The previous sections of this review have provided detailed evidence of a proliferation of concepts, instruments and pedagogical strategies, together with a ‘bedlam of contradictory claims’ (Reynolds 1997, 116). The sheer number of dichotomies in the literature conveys something of the current conceptual confusion. We have, in this review, for instance, referred to: convergers versus divergers verbalisers versus imagers holists versus serialists deep versus surface learning activists versus reflectors pragmatists versus theorists adaptors versus innovators assimilators versus explorers field dependent versus field independent globalists versus analysts assimilators versus accommodators imaginative versus analytic learners non-committers versus plungers common-sense versus dynamic learners concrete versus abstract learners random versus sequential learners initiators versus reasoners intuitionists versus analysts extroverts versus introverts sensing versus intuition thinking versus feeling judging versus perceiving left brainers versus right brainers meaning-directed versus undirected theorists versus humanitarians activists versus theorists pragmatists versus reflectors organisers versus innovators lefts/analytics/inductives/successive processors versus rights/globals/deductives/ simultaneous processors executive, hierarchic, conservative versus legislative, anarchic, liberal. The sheer number of dichotomies betokens a serious failure of accumulated theoretical coherence and an absence of well-grounded findings, tested through replication. Or to put the point differently: there is some overlap among the concepts used, but no direct or easy comparability between approaches; there is no agreed ‘core’ technical vocabulary. The outcome – the constant generation of new approaches, each with its own language – is both bewildering and off-putting to practitioners and to other academics who do not specialise in this field. In addition, the complexity of the learning styles field and the lack of an overarching synthesis of the main models, or of dialogue between the leading proponents of individual models, lead to the impression of a research area that has become fragmented, isolated and ineffective. In the last 20 years, there has been only a single use of the term ‘learning styles’ and three uses of the term ‘cognitive styles’ in the Annual Review of Psychology. We have also noted that these terms are not included in the indexes in four widely used textbooks on cognitive and educational psychology. Instead, psychometric specialists speak mainly to each other about the merits or otherwise of particular instruments. Even the proponents of the more credible models, namely those offered by Allinson and Hayes (see Section 6.4) or Vermunt (Section 7.2), tend not to engage with each other’s models or those from other families. Although the theorists tend to claim routinely that all learning styles within a particular model are equally viable, the terminology that they have chosen is neither neutral nor value-free. It is clearly preferable, for instance, to use a deep rather than surface learning approach, to be field independent rather than field dependent, and to exhibit the hierarchic rather than the anarchic thinking style. Yet, as our review of Entwistle’s model (Section 7.1) showed, sometimes a strategic approach is effective and students need to be able to judge when different approaches to learning are appropriate. The value judgements evident in various models need to be made more explicit if students are independently to evaluate the different approaches to learning styles.
Learning styles in practice: labelling, vested interests and overblown claims The theorists warn of the dangers of labelling, whereby teachers come to view their students as being a certain type of learner, but despite this warning, many practitioners who use their instruments think in stereotypes and treat, for instance, vocational students as if they were all non-reflective activists. The literature is full of examples of practitioners and some theorists themselves referring to ‘globals and analytics’ (Brunner and Majewski 1990, 22), or ‘Quadrant Four learners’ (Kelley 1990, 38), or ‘integrated hemisphere thinkers’ (Toth and Farmer 2000, 6). In a similar vein, Rita Dunn writes as follows: ‘It is fascinating that analytic and global youngsters appear to have different environmental and physiological needs’ (1990c, 226). Similarly, students begin to label themselves; for example, at a conference attended by one of the reviewers, an able student reflected – perhaps somewhat ironically – on using the Dunn and Dunn Productivity Environmental Preference Survey (PEPS): ‘I learned that I was a low auditory, kinaesthetic learner. So there’s no point in me reading a book or listening to anyone for more than a few minutes’. The temptation to classify, label and stereotype is clearly difficult to resist. Entwistle has repeatedly warned against describing students as ‘deep’ or ‘surface’ learners, but these warnings tend to be ignored when instruments move into mainstream use. Another tendency among some of the researchers whose work was reviewed earlier in this report has been ‘to rush prematurely into print and marketing with very early and preliminary indications of factor loadings based on one dataset’ (Curry 1990, 51). The field is bedevilled by vested interests because some of the leading developers of learning style instruments have themselves conducted the research into the psychometric properties of their own tests, which they are simultaneously offering for sale in the marketplace. We shall return later in this section to the need for critical, independent research which is insulated from the market. Moreover, the status of research in this field is not helped by the overblown claims of some of the developers and their enthusiastic devotees. For example, Carbo, the director of the National Reading Styles Institute in the US, claimed that when staff were trained for 4 or 5 days in ‘matching’ techniques, ‘very often the results have been phenomenal, not just significant. We’ve had some gains of 10 times as high as students were achieving before’ (quoted by O’Neil 1990, 7). Rigorously conducted research, as we saw earlier, has experienced difficulty in establishing that matching produced significant, never mind phenomenal, gains. The commercial industry that has grown around particular models makes independent researchers think twice before publicly criticising either the shortcomings of the models or the hyperbolic claims made for them. These central features of the research field – the isolated research groups, the lack of theoretical coherence and of a common conceptual framework, the proliferating models and dichotomies, the dangers of labelling, the influence of vested interests and the disproportionate claims of supporters – have created conflict, complexity and confusion. They have also produced wariness and a growing disquiet among those academics and researchers who are interested in learning, but who have no direct personal or institutional interest in learning styles. After more than 30 years of research, no consensus has been reached about the most effective instrument for measuring learning styles and no agreement about the most appropriate pedagogical interventions. Nor are there any signs of the leading theorists coming together to address the central problems of their field. If left to itself, research into learning styles looks as if it will continue to produce more disorganised proliferation. A psychological version of Gresham’s Law is already in operation in that the bad publicity caused by unreliable and invalid instruments is turning those interested in improving the quality of learning away from the achievements of the more careful scholars in the field. As we argued in Section 8, the vacuum created by the absence of an agreed theory (or theories) of post-16 pedagogy, and by the lack of widespread understanding about learning has enabled those versions of ‘best practice’ produced by the DfES to gain prominence.
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LSRC reference Contents 1 9 13 37 4
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LSRC reference Figures and tables L
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LSRC reference Acknowledgements The
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Section 1 A systematic review of le
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Figure 3 Vermunt’s model of learn
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We devised this classificatory syst
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The popular appeal of the notion th
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Figure 5 Gregorc’s four-channel l
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From the evidence available, we con
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Table 1 Gregorc’s Mind Styles Mod
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Table 2 Variables and factors in th
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The measures Over 25 years, Dunn an
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Table 4 Percentages of respondents
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The BES instrument has elements for
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Shwery (1994) also questioned aspec
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However, the notion of ‘gifted’
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Second, the model encourages teache
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Table 6 Dunn and Dunn’s model and
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The most influential member of the
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Table 9 Studies of the interaction
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Riding and Rayner (1998) do not def
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Implications for pedagogy Riding (2
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Section 5 Stable personality type L
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Section 6 Flexibly stable learning
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