Howard Gardner (1983) published Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple

Intelligences. He wrote that there was more than one kind of intelligence than could be measured
by standardized tests. Over the years, K-12 educators have subverted this to mean students who
dont respond to traditional teaching methods need to be taught in specific ways, that is, that
children have particular learning styles, namely Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic, though there
are others.
Lets assume that this is correct for a common sense experiment.
Student A is a visual learner. Student B is an auditory learner. Student C is a kinesthetic learner.
I want to teach the students how to assemble a flange, like in the movie Men of Honor.
I will give Student a book with pictures and diagrams showing how to do it. I will give
student B an audiotape wherein an easy-to-understand voice describes how to do it. I will give
student C a flange and some tools.
The Learning Styles hypothesis states that after a certain period of instruction (an hour?
A day?), all three students will perform the task equally well because they were given material
that matched their particular learning style. This is obviously not true.
Now lets do the same experiment. This time, there is also a Student D. Student Ds
learning style is not identified, but it doesnt matter. I am going to give Student D the audiotape,
the book with pictures, and a flange and tools.
I have a very strong belief that Student D will outperform students A, B, and C,
regardless of whatever learning style Student D is hypothesized to have. Why? Because he is
getting the same information in multiple ways, the benefits of which far outweigh any singular
form of instruction that other students, regardless of any supposed intelligences or learning styles
they have.

But lets back up. Multiple Intelligences are NOT learning styles. Even Howard Gardner
has said that. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/.../howard-gardner.../). Notice that he himself
criticizes the idea of learning styles, saying the notion of learning styles is itself not coherent.
Those who use this term do not define the criteria for a style, nor where styles come from, how
they are recognized/assessed/exploited.
Now that we know they are NOT the same thing, we can examine learning styles in
particular (Im not going to argue Multiple Intelligences here to save space, time, and because
its no longer part of the equation as concerns learning styles).
First off, learning styles dont exist. Ive stated this before, and I stand by it. I know that
in education, many educators like to believe that children are special, unique butterflies and we
must cater to their particular learning styles, but it simply isnt true. Outside of education, most
people realize this isnt true. In cognitive psychology, for example, they readily understand that
learning styles, if they exist, do not matter (Learning Styles Don't Exist).
Howard Gardner, in the Washington Post article linked above, also notes that when
researchers have tried to identify learning styles, teach consistently with those styles, and
examine outcomes, there is not persuasive evidence that the learning style analysis produces
more effective outcomes than a one size fits all approach.
Even in Britain, they espouse Learning Styles hypothesis without much evidence to show
for it (http://www.theguardian.com/education/2005/may/31/schools.uk3). Despite a large and
evolving research programme, forceful claims made for impact are questionable because of
limitations in many of the supporting studies and the lack of independent research on the model.
They also found that none of the most popular learning style theories had been adequately
validated through independent research. The idea of a learning cycle, the consistency of visual,

auditory and kinaesthetic preferences, and the value of matching teaching and learning styles
were all highly questionable.
Part of the problem, as explained in the video and the Guardian article above, is that we
do store information and remember things either visually, auditorily, or kinesthetically, but that
is how the information is STORED, not necessarily how it is RECEIVED or LEARNED.
Another part of the problem, I think, has to do with both intelligence/aptitude and
motivation. We could go on for days about both of these, but lets keep it simple with an
example.
I sucked at algebra when I was a kid. Even in college. I was presented with visual data in
the math books. The teacher spoke aloud as he/she solved problems on the board. I even
practiced solving problems, writing down the equations on paper. I covered all three major
learning styles throughout high school and college, yet I barely got by (failed Algebra I the first
time, got a C the second time). Why? Part of the problem is I wasnt motivated I just dont care
that much to sit around and solve math problems. Id rather read literature or practice languages.
Another part is my aptitude Im not really mathematically inclined. I can judge distances,
speed, weight, etc, and do basic addition and subtraction in my head quickly, but show me
equations and my mind starts spinning.
Again, this has nothing to do with learning styles. Maybe its related to Multiple
Intelligences, but I would argue its an overall product of my intelligence/aptitude and my
motivation to learn math.
But, we are in education and academia. We want scholarly, peer-reviewed evidence,
amirite? Yeah, thats what we want. Here are some articles:

Cook, D. A., Gelula, M. H., Dupras, D. M., & Schwartz, A. (2007). Instructional methods
and cognitive and learning styles in web-based learning: report of two randomised trials. Medical
Education, 41(9), 897905. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2007.02822.x
Curry, L. (1990). A critique of the research on learning styles. Educational Leadership,
48(2), 5056. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/.../journals/ed_lead/el_199010_curry.pdf
Massa, L. J., & Mayer, R. E. (2006). Testing the ATI hypothesis: Should multimedia
instruction accommodate verbalizer-visualizer cognitive style? Learning and Individual
Differences, 16(4), 321335. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2006.10.001
Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts
and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(3), 105119.
Rohrer, D., & Pashler, H. (2012). Learning styles: Wheres the evidence? Medical
Education, 46(7), 634635. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2012.04273.x
Most notable are the Pashler et al. (2008) and Rohrer & Pashler (2012) papers. Pashler et
al. performed a meta-analysis of the literature to find sufficient evidence for the learning-styles
concept (p. 106). They concluded that such validation is lacking, and therefore, we feel that the
widespread use of learning-style measures in educational settings is unwise and a wasteful use of
limited resources (p. 117). Note again, that these researchers are cognitive psychologists. People
who study the brain tend to understand how the brain and learning work better than
educationists.
The Rohrer and Pashler (2012) paper is also a literature review. They looked at previous
literature and found that the appropriate design was used in only about 20 studies, and the
results of most of them are compellingly negative (p. 634). They did find three studies that were
well designed and yielded positive results for learning styles, but that these findings are not very

convincing (p. 634). Another weakness they mention is that none of the studies with positive
results, questionable as they may be, includes effect sizes. They conclude that even if the
empirical evidence revealed a consistent benefit of style-based instruction, providing tailored
instruction would not make sense unless its benefits were large. This is because style-based
instruction is logistically demanding (p. 635).
In short, Learning Styles either do not exist, OR, if they do exist, the effect sizes are not
known, cannot be shown, are shown to be somewhat insubstantial, and the any benefits that may
be shown are grossly outweighed by the logistical demands of the pedagogy.
Should you teach individual students in particular ways that cater to their learning styles?
No. Cognitive psychology and evidence-based, peer-reviewed research show us that this isnt the
case.