Learning styles and pedagogy in post 16 learning phần 1 potx

Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning A systematic and critical review This repor t critically reviews the literature on learning styles and examines in detail 13 of the most

Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning

A systematic and critical review

This repor t critically reviews the literature on learning styles

and examines in detail 13

of the most influential models

The repor t concludes that

it matters fundamentally which

implications for teaching and learning in post-16 learning

of concern to learners, teachers and trainers, managers,

researchers and inspectors.

Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning

A systematic and critical review

This repor t critically reviews the literature on learning styles

and examines in detail 13

of the most influential models

The repor t concludes that

it matters fundamentally which

implications for teaching and learning in post-16 learning

of concern to learners, teachers and trainers, managers,

researchers and inspectors.

Frank Coffield

Institute of Education

University of London

David Moseley

University of Newcastle

Elaine Hall

University of Newcastle

Kathryn Ecclestone

University of Exeter

Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning

A systematic and critical review

is supported by the Learning and Skills Council and the Department for Education and Skills The views expressed in this publication are those

of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Learning and Skills Research Centre

or the Learning and Skills Development Agency Published by the

Learning and Skills Research Centre

www.LSRC.ac.uk

Feedback should be sent to:

Sally Faraday

Research Manager

Learning and Skills Development Agency

Regent Arcade House

19–25 Argyll Street

London W1F 7LS

Tel 020 7297 9098

Fax 020 7297 9190

sfaraday@LSDA.org.uk

Copyedited by Helen Lund

Designed by sans+baum

Printed by Cromwell Press Ltd

Trowbridge, Wiltshire

1543/06/04/500

ISBN 1 85338 918 8

© Learning and Skills Research Centre

2004

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Section 4

Section 5

Section 6

Section 7

Section 8

Section 9

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Acknowledgements

A systematic review of learning-styles models

Introduction Aims of the project Approaches to the literature review Introduction to Sections 3–7

A continuum of learning styles Families of learning styles Genetic and other constitutionally based factors

Introduction 3.1 Gregorc’s Mind Styles Model and Style Delineator 3.2 The Dunn and Dunn model and instruments of learning styles The cognitive structure family

Introduction 4.1 Riding’s model of cognitive style and his Cognitive Styles Analysis (CSA)

Stable personality type

Introduction 5.1 The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) 5.2 Apter’s reversal theor y of motivational styles, the Motivational Style Profile (MSP) and related assessment tools

5.3 Jackson’s Learning Styles Profiler (LSP) Flexibly stable learning preferences

Introduction 6.1 Kolb’s Learning Style Inventor y (LSI) 6.2 Honey and Mumford’s Learning Styles Questionnaire (LSQ) 6.3 The Herrmann ‘whole brain’ model and the

Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) 6.4 Allinson and Hayes’ Cognitive Style Index (CSI) Learning approaches and strategies

Introduction 7.1 Entwistle’s Approaches and Study Skills Inventor y for Students (ASSIST)

7.2 Vermunt’s framework for classifying learning styles and his Inventor y of Learning Styles (ILS)

7.3 Sternberg’s theor y of thinking styles and his Thinking Styles Inventor y (TSI)

Implications for pedagogy

What advice for practitioners?

The appeal of learning styles The objections to learning styles Still no pedagogy in the UK Recommendations and conclusions

Positive recommendations Continuing problems with the research field of learning styles Gaps in knowledge and possible future research projects Final comments

Contents

References List of learning-styles instruments and theories List of search terms used in the literature review Glossary of terms

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

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Figures and tables

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Figures

Selection of literature for review

Curr y’s ‘onion’ model of learning styles

Vermunt’s model of learning styles (1998)

Families of learning styles

Gregorc’s four-channel learning-style model

The two dimensions of the CSA

The four bipolar discontinuous scales of the MBTI

Possible motivational style reversals in four experiential domains Kolb’s four learning styles

The experiential learning theor y of growth and development Dimensions of Honey and Mumford’s learning cycle

Conceptual map of components of effective studying from ASSIST The 4MAT system

Tables

Gregorc’s Mind Styles Model and Style Delineator (GSD)

Variables and factors in the Dunn and Dunn learning-styles model Elements of learning style from the Dunn and Dunn model

Percentages of respondents preferring a specific time of day Studies of the learning-style preferences of able students

Dunn and Dunn’s model and instruments of learning styles

Learning-styles instruments in the cognitive structure family Kogan’s classification of learning styles

Studies of the interaction of field independence and attainment with learners aged 14+ years

Riding’s Cognitive Styles Analysis (CSA)

The 16 MBTI personality types

Summar y of the 10 most common MBTI types

Authors’ repor t of test–retest reliability of the MBTI Form G Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

Apter’s Motivational Style Profile (MSP)

Key characteristics of each style

Strengths and weaknesses of the different preferences

The extent to which corresponding scales – Jackson (LSP) and Honey and Mumford (LSQ) – measure the same constructs Jackson’s Learning Styles Profiler (LSP)

Kolb’s Learning Style Inventor y (LSI)

Strengths and weaknesses

LSQ retest correlations, by learning style

Activities and preferences

Honey and Mumford’s Learning Styles Questionnaire (LSQ)

‘Whole brain’ learning and design considerations

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Summar y of positive and negative loading items on two HBDI factors Item loadings on the four main HBDI factors

Illustrative occupational group norms

Herrmann’s Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI)

Items which best characterise analysis and intuition

Allinson and Hayes’ Cognitive Styles Index (CSI)

Defining features of approaches to learning and studying

Reliability of ASI sub-scales

Entwistle’s Approaches and Study Skills Inventor y for Students (ASSIST) Vermunt’s learning styles with illustrations of their components

Areas and sub-scales of the ILS

Exemplar vignettes of Vermunt’s four learning styles using ILS items Vermunt’s Inventor y of Learning Styles (ILS)

Summar y of styles of thinking

Thinking styles and methods of instruction

Thinking styles and methods of assessment

Sternberg’s Thinking Styles Inventor y (TSI)

Effect sizes for different types of intervention

13 learning-styles models matched against minimal criteria

The project team would like to extend thanks to the authors of the models reviewed in this repor t for their comments and reactions to our work which enabled

us to improve the quality of the final version

We also wish to acknowledge the steady and sensitive suppor t of John Vorhaus of the Learning and Skills Development Agency (LSDA) and the administrative skills of Louise Wilson of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne Eugene Sadler-Smith read an earlier version

of this repor t and made some useful comments for which we are also grateful

Acknowledgements

The theor y and practice of learning styles has

generated great interest and controversy over the past

20 years and more The Learning and Skills Research Centre would like to express its appreciation to the authors of two complementar y repor ts, for the time and effor t that went into their production and for providing

a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners

in the learning and skills sector

These repor ts serve two key purposes: first, they contribute to what we know about models of learning styles and to our knowledge of what these offer to teachers and learners Second, the repor ts identify

an agenda for fur ther research: to evaluate rigorously key models in a variety of learning environments in order to better understand their merits and deficiencies

We publish these repor ts in the spirit of stimulating debate and enabling knowledge of learning styles

to be developed for the benefit of practice and policy

The complementar y repor t Should we be using learning

styles? explores what research has to say to practice.

Final sections are common to both repor ts: these draw out the implications for pedagogy and offer recommendations and conclusions for practitioners, policy-makers and the research community

LSDA would also like to thank the steering committee for incisive commentar y and suppor t throughout the project

Dr John Vorhaus

Research Manager

Learning and Skills Development Agency

Steering committee members:

Professor Charles Desforges

Professor Noel Entwistle

Professor Phil Hodkinson

Dr John Vorhaus

Foreword

How can we teach students if we do not know how

they learn? How can we improve the performance

of our employees if we do not know how we ourselves

learn or how to enhance their learning? Are the

learning difficulties of so many students/employees

better understood as the teaching problems of

tutors/workplace training managers? How can we

pretend any longer that we are serious about creating

a learning society if we have no satisfactor y response

to the questions: what model of learning do we operate

with and how do we use it to improve our practice

and that of our students/staff/organisation? These

are just some of the issues raised by those researchers

who for the last 40–50 years have been studying the

learning styles of individuals

There is a strong intuitive appeal in the idea that

teachers and course designers should pay closer

attention to students’ learning styles – by diagnosing

them, by encouraging students to reflect on them

and by designing teaching and learning interventions

around them Fur ther evidence for the idea that we

have individual learning styles appears to be offered

when teachers notice that students var y enormously

in the speed and manner with which they pick up new

information and ideas, and the confidence with which

they process and use them Another impetus to interest

in post-16 learning styles is given by a government

policy that aims to develop the necessar y attitudes

and skills for lifelong learning, par ticularly in relation

to ‘learning to learn’ These are widely assumed by

policy-makers and practitioners to be well delineated,

generic and transferable

The logic of lifelong learning suggests that students

will become more motivated to learn by knowing more

about their own strengths and weaknesses as learners

In turn, if teachers can respond to individuals’ strengths

and weaknesses, then retention and achievement

rates in formal programmes are likely to rise and

‘learning to learn’ skills may provide a foundation for

lifelong learning Perhaps a more instrumental impetus

is provided by pressures on resources in many post-16

institutions For example, if students become more

independent in their learning as a result of knowing

their strengths and weaknesses, then negative effects

from lower levels of contact between lecturers and

students will be counterbalanced if students develop

more effective learning strategies which they can use

outside formal contact time

A complex research field Yet beneath the apparently unproblematic appeal

of learning styles lies a host of conceptual and empirical problems To begin with, the learning styles field is not unified, but instead is divided into three linked areas

of activity: theoretical, pedagogical and commercial The first area is a growing body of theoretical and empirical research on learning styles in the UK, the

US and Western Europe that began in the early years

of the 20th centur y and is still producing ideas and

an ever-proliferating number of instruments Our review has identified 71 models of learning styles and we have categorised 13 of these as major models, using criteria outlined below The remaining 58 (listed in Appendix 1) are not critically analysed in this repor t Many consist

of rather minor adaptations of one of the leading models and therefore lack influence on the field as a whole;

a large number represent the outcomes of doctoral

theses Some offer new constructs1(or new labels for existing constructs) as the basis for a claim to have developed a new model Others have been used only

on ver y small or homogeneous populations, and yet others have had a brief vogue but have long fallen into obscurity It is impor tant to note that the field

of learning styles research as a whole is characterised

by a ver y large number of small-scale applications

of par ticular models to small samples of students

in specific contexts This has proved especially problematic for our review of evidence of the impact

of learning styles on teaching and learning, since there are ver y few robust studies which offer, for example, reliable and valid evidence and clear implications for practice based on empirical findings

The second area is a vast body of research into teaching and learning which draws researchers from diverse specialisms, mainly from different branches

of psychology, but also from sociology, business studies, management and education Researchers working in the field of learning styles across or within these disciplines tend to interpret evidence and theories in their own terms Evidence about learning

is guided by contrasting and disputed theories from psychology, sociology, education and policy studies, and valued in different ways from different perspectives Education is also influenced strongly by political

ideologies and social values that create preferences

as to which type of theor y is given greatest weight The problem is compounded by the way in which academic researchers develop their reputations by establishing individual territories and specialisms, which are then stoutly defended against those from

a different perspective This form of intellectual trench warfare, while common throughout academia, is not

a par ticular feature of the learning styles literature, where the leading theorists and developers of instruments tend to ignore, rather than engage with, each other The result is fragmentation, with little cumulative knowledge and cooperative research

Section 1

A systematic review of learning-styles models

1 Bold italic text indicates the first usage in the text of a term in the glossar y (Appendix 3).

The third area consists of a large commercial industr y

promoting par ticular inventories and instruments

Cer tain models have become extremely influential

and popular: in the US, for example, the Dunn, Dunn

and Price Learning Styles Inventory (LSI) is used

in a large number of elementar y schools, while in the

UK, both Kolb’s Learning Style Inventor y (LSI) and

Honey and Mumford’s Learning Styles Questionnaire

(LSQ) are widely known and used The commercial

gains for creators of successful learning styles

instruments are so large that critical engagement

with the theoretical and empirical bases of their claims

tends to be unwelcome

Many teachers use the most well-known instruments

with explicit acknowledgement of the source and

a clear idea of why they have chosen a par ticular model

However, it is also common, par ticularly on in-service

training, management or professional development

courses, for par ticipants to analyse their learning styles

using an unnamed questionnaire with no accompanying

explanation or rationale In many ways, the use of

different inventories of learning styles has acquired an

unexamined life of its own, where the notion of learning

styles itself and the various means to measure it

are accepted without question Mainstream use has

too often become separated from the research field

More problematically, it has also become isolated from

deeper questions about whether a par ticular inventor y

has a sufficient theoretical basis to warrant either

the research industr y which has grown around it,

or the pedagogical uses to which it is currently put

A final aspect of complexity is that researchers

produce their models and instruments for different

purposes Some aim to contribute to theor y

about learning styles and do not design their

instrument for use in mainstream practice By contrast,

others develop an instrument to be used widely by

practitioners in diverse contexts This difference

affects the type of claims made for the instrument

and the type of research studies that evaluate it

These three areas of research and activity and

their potential and pitfalls, militate against the type

of integrative review that we have carried out for

the Learning and Skills Research Centre (LSRC)

We have found the field to be much more extensive,

opaque, contradictor y and controversial than

we thought at the star t of the research process

Evaluating different models of learning styles and

their implications for pedagogy requires an appreciation

of this complexity and controversy It also requires

some understanding of ideas about learning and

measurement that have preoccupied researchers in

education, psychology and neuroscience for decades

The extensive nature of the field surprised us: we underestimated the volume of research which has been carried out on all aspects of learning styles over the last

30 years, although most of it refers to higher education and professional learning rather than work in fur ther education (FE) colleges Three examples illustrate this point First, in 2000, David Kolb and his wife Alice produced a bibliography of research conducted since

1971 on his experiential learning theor y and Learning Style Inventor y (LSI) : it contains 1004 entries Second, the website for the Dunn and Dunn Learning Styles Questionnaire (LSQ) has a bibliography with 1140 entries Lastly, it has been estimated that 2000 ar ticles have been written about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) between 1985 and 1995 (see our evaluations later in this repor t for more detail)

The enormous size of these literatures presents ver y par ticular problems for practitioners, policy-makers and researchers who are not specialists in this field

It is extremely unlikely that any of these groups will ever read the original papers and so they are dependent on reviews like this one, which have to discard the weakest papers, to summarise the large numbers of high-quality research papers, to simplify complex statistical arguments and to impose some order on a field which

is marked by debate and constructive critique as well

as by disunity, dissension and conceptual confusion The principal tasks for the reviewers are to maintain academic rigour throughout the processes of selection, condensation, simplification and interpretation, while also writing in a style accessible to a broad audience

In these respects, the field of learning styles is similar

to many other areas in the social sciences where both the measurement problems and the implications for practice are complex

Competing ideas about learning Conflicting assumptions about learning underpin mainstream ideas about learning and the best-known models of learning styles For example, some theories discussed in this repor t derive from research into brain functioning, where claims are made that specific neural activity related to learning can be identified

in different areas of the brain Other influential ideas derive from established psychological theories, such

as personality traits, intellectual abilities and fixed

traits which are said to form learning styles From this latter perspective, it is claimed that learning styles can

be defined accurately and then measured reliably and validly through psychological tests in order to predict behaviour and achievement Claims about learning styles from the perspective of fixed traits lead to labels and descriptors of styles as the basis for strong claims about the generalisability of learning styles These can take on unexpected predictive or controversial characteristics For example, the belief that styles are fixed has led to propositions that marriage par tners should have compatible learning styles, that people from socially disadvantaged groups tend to have

a par ticular style or, as Gregorc (1985) believes, that styles are God-given and that to work against one’s personal style will lead to ill-health (see Section 3.1 for evaluation of his Style Delineator)