ARE LEARNING STYLES INVALID? (HINT: NO!) *

Abstract

As every teacher discovers, no two students approach learning in exactly the same way. Some get more from visual imagery while others prefer verbal explanations; some tend to try things out and see what happens and others are more inclined to think things through first; some reason in a relatively sequential manner and others have a more holistic orientation; some are most theories and symbolism, and so on. A learning style is a particular set of those tendencies. Keefe 1 formally defines learning styles as “characteristic cognitive, affective, and psychological behaviors that serve as relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment. ” Awareness of learning style differences can help instructors teach in a manner that effectively reaches most students rather than putting a large subset of them at a disadvantage. Since the number of ways in which learning preferences may differ is unlimited, a theory that attempted to encompass most learning style dimensions would be too cumbersome to be of any practical use. A learning styles model specifies a small number of dimensions that collectively provide a good basis for designing effective instruction. Like all models in the

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