Thank you for this. I am glad the authors pointed out how damaging these labels are. I would add that there are high profile math educators who regularly insist that girls, and minority groups, need hands-on learning and project-based learning in math, with less focus on procedures and traditional algorithms. Yet it is the traditional math that sets students up for success to move into higher level math. I've always found this talk discriminatory (and self-serving for those promoting their pedagogical ideologies).
Oh just read Hattie's paper- he criticizes the research he has listed in his Visible Learning data base. This is a bit strange! The effect sizes for Learning Styles has been around 0.40 and recently he has added another study so ES he now publishes is 0.42. Hattie has been criticized for adding poor quality studies and Hattie responded, '...claims that the studies were not appraised for their validity are misleading and incorrect. One of the very powers of meta-analysis is to deal with this issue. Readers and policy makers can have assurance that the conclusions I made are based on "studies, the merits of which have been investigated"'. (Hattie, 2010) Why currently publish an effect Size of 0.42 then?
The learning styles myth will persist because 'personalisation' does generally work as a broad optimisation technique in most settings. It is an interesting quirk that personalisation doesn't work for sensory modes/preferences and teaching.
And yet what gets me is that other ideas, such as dual coding theory or generative learning, explain how learning works across modalities. But those ideas just aren't trendy.
Thank you for this. I am glad the authors pointed out how damaging these labels are. I would add that there are high profile math educators who regularly insist that girls, and minority groups, need hands-on learning and project-based learning in math, with less focus on procedures and traditional algorithms. Yet it is the traditional math that sets students up for success to move into higher level math. I've always found this talk discriminatory (and self-serving for those promoting their pedagogical ideologies).
Oh just read Hattie's paper- he criticizes the research he has listed in his Visible Learning data base. This is a bit strange! The effect sizes for Learning Styles has been around 0.40 and recently he has added another study so ES he now publishes is 0.42. Hattie has been criticized for adding poor quality studies and Hattie responded, '...claims that the studies were not appraised for their validity are misleading and incorrect. One of the very powers of meta-analysis is to deal with this issue. Readers and policy makers can have assurance that the conclusions I made are based on "studies, the merits of which have been investigated"'. (Hattie, 2010) Why currently publish an effect Size of 0.42 then?
The learning styles myth will persist because 'personalisation' does generally work as a broad optimisation technique in most settings. It is an interesting quirk that personalisation doesn't work for sensory modes/preferences and teaching.
And yet what gets me is that other ideas, such as dual coding theory or generative learning, explain how learning works across modalities. But those ideas just aren't trendy.