Learning Styles Are a Myth

When I started working in corporate learning and development (L&D), I quickly discovered that people have a lot of opinions about how they learn best, but few of those opinions are grounded in reality.

The most common myth is the concept of “learning styles”: everyone learns in a different way, and people learn better when the mode of training matches their preferred style (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, reading/writing).

The only problem is…that theory hasn’t been validated by research. Several studies have flat-out contradicted that theory, yet the myth stubbornly lives on, influencing the way many people think about learning.

In a landmark 2008 study, cognitive psychologists Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, et al. set out to determine whether there’s sufficient evidence for the learning styles theory. Their research uncovered several studies that outrightly contradicted the theory and virtually no studies that supported it.

Yikes!

Psychological Science in the Public Interest (PSPI) had this to say about the research:

“A large number of studies have purported to show that different kinds of learners (such as “auditory learners” and “visual learners”) learn best when taught in their preferred modality; but the majority of such studies have not used the type of randomized research designs…that would make their findings credible. What psychological evidence does show is that people are inclined to hold false beliefs about how they learn and that they tend to learn and teach others in nonoptimal ways.”

People indeed have preferences for how to learn, but those preferences don’t line up with how people actually learn.

That means you can’t hide behind statements like “I’m more of a visual learner” or “I’m just not a book person,” as those sentiments likely point to personal preference instead of learning effectiveness.

So How Do People Actually Learn?

Thankfully, there’s a lot of rigorous, valid research about what works and doesn’t work — if you know where to look. For example, there’s a fantastic book called Make It Stick by Peter Brown, Henry Roediger III, and Mark McDaniel that unpacks what techniques help people retain knowledge long-term. (I highly recommend that book!)

Essentially, we learn best when the style of instruction matches the subject being taught.

It’s impossible to learn archery by sitting in a classroom — you need the bow in your hands. You can’t learn to dance by reading a book — you need to lace up your shoes. Geometry should be taught visually, stories should be taught verbally, project management should be taught experientially, and so on.

The best teachers and corporate trainers recognize how to teach their topics and use whatever training mechanisms best support the subject at hand.

This is why workplace behavioral skills like leadership or effective communication are hard to convey in an e-learning module — it isn’t “human” enough. Long before computers (or classrooms, for that matter) existed, people learned how to be good leaders or strong collaborators by listening to stories from others who did it well. Stories help us visualize someone else’s situation and consider how we would respond if placed in a similar position.

There are many other research-backed methods that have been proven to help people learn. Here are a few:

• Spaced repetition (repeatedly reviewing content in a way that overcomes the “Ebbinghaus forgetting curve”)
• Self-quizzing (and other methods of prompting frequent recall of information)
• Interleaving (intermixing learning on different, albeit related skills)
• Integrative elaboration (connecting new information to concepts you already know and understand)
• Personal reflection (journaling about insights and key takeaways)

If you’re trying to learn any new skill, it’s important to know how your brain does — and doesn’t — process information.

Refuse to blindly accept the learning myths you’ve heard. Seek out knowledge yourself. Re-learn how to learn. Read books like Make It Stick, follow learning gurus like Michael Simmons and Josh Bersin, and dive into the research.

Rather than catering to mythical “styles,” find the best mechanism(s) for each specific skill you need to learn, and use those research-backed methods to drive success.