learning-styles

LSRC reference Section 9
page 144/145
We still do not know, as Grasha pointed out (1984, 51)
‘the costs and benefits of designing classroom
methods and procedures based on learning styles
versus continuing to do what is already done’. That
type of knowledge is essential before any large-scale
reforms of pedagogy on the basis of learning styles
are contemplated. Grasha’s question, however,
prompts another, more fundamental one: should
research into learning styles be discontinued, as
Reynolds has argued? In his own words: ‘Even using
learning style instruments as a convenient way
of introducing the subject [of learning] generally is
hazardous because of the superficial attractions
of labelling and categorizing in a world suffused with
uncertainties’ (1997, 128). Our view is that a policy
of using learning styles instruments to introduce the
topic of learning is too undiscriminating and our review
of the leading models (Sections 3–7) counsels the
need to be highly selective.
The suggestions made here for further research would
necessitate the investment of considerable financial
and human resources over a long period of time
in order to make learning styles relevant to a diverse
post-16 sector. But would such investment pay real
dividends and is it the highest priority for research
funding in the sector?
Final comments
This report has sought to sift the wheat from the chaff
among the leading models and inventories of learning
styles and among their implications for pedagogy:
we have based our conclusions on the evidence,
on reasoned argument and on healthy scepticism.
For 16 months, we immersed ourselves in the world
of learning styles and learned to respect the
enthusiasm and the dedication of those theorists,
test developers and practitioners who are working
to improve the quality of teaching and learning.
We ourselves have been reminded yet again how
complex and varied that simple-sounding task is and
we have learned that we are still some considerable way
from an overarching and agreed theory of pedagogy.
In the meantime, we agree with Curry’s summation
(1990, 54) of the state of play of research into learning
styles: ‘researchers and users alike will continue
groping like the five blind men in the fable about the
elephant, each with a part of the whole but none with
full understanding’.
Our penultimate question is: what are the prospects
for the future of learning styles? From within the
discipline, commentators like Cassidy (2003) are
calling for rationalisation, consolidation and integration
of the more psychometrically robust instruments and
models. Is such integration a likely outcome, however?
We wish it were, but some internal characteristics
of the field militate against rationalisation.
First, learning styles models and instruments
are being simultaneously developed in the relatively
autonomous university departments of business
studies, education, law, medicine and psychology.
No one person or organisation has the responsibility
to overview these sprawling fields of endeavour
and to recommend changes; in the UK, the academic
panels for the RAE are subject-based and the area
of learning styles straddles three, if not more, of the
existing units of assessment.
Second, fortunes are being made as instruments,
manuals, videotapes, in-service packages, overhead
transparencies, publications and workshops are
all commercially advertised and promoted vigorously
by some of the leading figures in the field. In short,
the financial incentives are more likely to encourage
further proliferation than sensible integration. It also
needs to be said that there are other, distinguished
contributors to research on learning styles who work in
order to enhance the learning capabilities of individuals
and firms and not in order to make money.
Third, now that most of the instruments can be
administered, completed and scored online, it
has become a relatively simple matter to give one’s
favourite learning styles inventory (no matter how
invalid or unreliable) to a few hundred university
students who complete the forms as part of their
course; in this way, some trivial hypothesis can
be quickly confirmed or refuted. The danger here is
of mindless and atheoretical empiricism. We conclude
that some order will, sooner or later, have to be imposed
on the learning styles field from outside.
Finally, we want to ask: why should politicians,
policy-makers, senior managers and practitioners
in post-16 learning concern themselves with learning
styles, when the really big issues concern the large
percentages of students within the sector who
either drop out or end up without any qualifications?
Should not the focus of our collective attention be
on asking and answering the following questions?
Are the institutions in further, adult and community
education in reality centres of learning for all their
staff and students?
Do some institutions constitute in themselves barriers
to learning for certain groups of staff and students?