How Common Is Belief in the Learning Styles Neuromyth, and Does It Matter? A Pragmatic Systematic Review

We find that 89.1% of 15,045 educators, surveyed from 2009 through to early 2020, self-reported a belief that individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred Learning Style. In every study analyzed, the majority of educators reported believing in the efficacy of this matching, reaching as high as 97.6% in one study by Dundar and colleagues, which was also the largest study in our analysis, accounting for 19% of the total sample (Dündar and Gündüz, 2016).

Perhaps the most concerning finding from our analysis is that there is no evidence that this belief is decreasing, despite research going back to 2004 which demonstrates that such an approach is ineffective and potentially harmful. We conducted three separate analyses to test for evidence of a decline but found none, in fact the total percentage of pre-service teachers who believe in Learning Styles (95.4%) was higher than the percentage of qualified teachers (87.8%). This finding suggests that belief in matching instruction to Learning Styles is acquired before, or during, teacher training. Tentative evidence in support for this is a preliminary indication that belief in Learning Styles may be lower in educators from Higher Education, where teacher training is less formal and not always compulsory. In addition, Van Dijk and Lane report that overall belief in neuromyths is lower in HE although they do not report this breakdown for their data on Learning Styles (van Dijk and Lane, 2018). However, the studies from Higher Education are small, and two of them are also studies where more information is provided to participants about Learning Styles (see below).

From our pragmatic perspective, there are a number of issues to consider when determining whether these findings should be a cause for alarm, and what to do about them.

The data analyzed here are mostly extracted from studies which assess teacher belief in a range of so-called neuromyths. These all use some version of the questionnaire developed by Howard-Jones and co-workers (Howard-Jones et al., 2009). The value of surveying belief in neuromyths has been questioned, on the basis that, in a small sample of award-winning teachers, there did not appear to be any correlation between belief in neuromyths and receiving a teaching award (Horvath et al., 2018). The Horvath study ultimately proposed that awareness of neuromyths is “irrelevant” to determining teacher effectiveness and played down concerns, expressed elsewhere in the field, that belief in neuromyths might be harmful to learners, or undermine the effectiveness of educators. We have only analyzed one element of the neuromyths questionnaire (Learning Styles), but we share some of the concerns expressed by Horvath and co-workers. The majority (30/34) of the samples analyzed here measured belief in Learning Styles using the original Howard-Jones/Dekker questionnaire. A benefit of having the same questions asked across multiple studies is that there is consistency in what is being measured. However, a problem is that any limitations with that instrument are amplified within the synthesis here. One potential limitation with the Howard-Jones question set is that the “matching” question is asked in many of the same surveys as a “belief” question, as shown in the introduction, potentially leading participants to conflate or confuse the two. Any issues may then be exacerbated by a lack of consistency in what participants understand by “matching instruction to Learning Styles”; this could affect all studies. The potential for multiple interpretations of these questions regarding Learning Styles is acknowledged by some authors (e.g., Morehead et al., 2016), and some studies report a lack of clarity regarding the specific meaning of Learning Styles and the matching hypothesis (Ruhaak and Cook, 2018; Papadatou-Pastou et al., 2020). This lack of clarity is reflected also in the psychometric properties of Learning Styles instruments themselves, with many failing to meet basic standards of reliability and validity required for psychometric validation (Coffield et al., 2004). In addition, we have previously founds that participants, when advised against matching instruction to Learning Styles, may conclude that this means educators should eliminate any consideration of individual preferences or variety in teaching methods (Newton and Miah, 2017).

Here we found no significant differences between participant responses to the question regarding belief in matching instruction vs. the question about individual preferences, with almost half the studies analyzed actually reporting a higher percentage of participants who believed in matching instruction when compared to belief that individuals have preferences for how they receive information. This is concerning from a basic methodological perspective. The question is normally thus; “Individual learners show preferences for the mode in which they receive information (e.g., visual, auditory, kinesthetic).” In any sample of learners, some individuals are going to express preferences. It may not be all learners, and those preferences may not be stable for all learners, and the question does not encompass all preferences, but the question, as asked, cannot be anything other than true.

More relevant for our research questions is the apparent evidence of a lack of clarity within the research instrument; it may not be clear to study participants what the matching hypothesis is and so it is difficult to conclude that the results truly represent belief in matching instruction to Learning Styles. This finding is tentatively supported by our analysis which shows that, in the two studies which give participants additional instructions and guidance to help them understand the matching hypothesis, belief in matching instruction to Learning Styles is much lower, a weighted average of 63.5% (Dandy and Bendersky, 2014; Newton and Miah, 2017). However, these are both small studies, and both are conducted in Higher Education rather than school teaching, so the difference may be explained by other factors, for example the amount and nature of teacher-training given to educators in Higher Education when compared to school-teaching. It would be informative to conduct further studies in which more detail was provided to participants about Learning Styles, before they are asked whether or not they believed matching instruction to Learning Styles is effective.

However, even if we conclude that the findings represent, in part, a lack of clarity over the specific meaning of “matching instruction to Learning Styles,” this might itself still be a cause for concern. The theory is very common in teacher training and academic literature (Newton, 2015; National Council on Teacher Quality, 2016; Wininger et al., 2019) and so we might hope that the meaning and use of it is clear to a majority of educators. An additional potential limitation is that the Howard-Jones question cites VARK as an example of Learning Styles, when there are over 70 different classifications. Thus we have almost no information about belief in other common classifications, such as those devised by Kolb, Honey and Mumford, Dunn and Dunn etc. (Coffield et al., 2004).

79.7% of participants reported that they used, or planned to use, the approach of matching instruction to Learning Styles. This high percentage was surprising since our earlier work (Newton and Miah, 2017) showed that only 33% of participants had used Learning Styles in the previous year. If Learning Styles are ineffective, wasteful of resources and even harmful, then we might predict that far fewer educators would actually use them. There are a number of caveats to the current results. There are only seven studies which report on this and all are small, accounting for <10% of the total sample. Most are not paired, i.e., they do not explicitly ask about belief in the efficacy of Learning Styles and then compare it to use of Learning Styles. The questions are often vague, broad and do not specifically represent an example of matching instruction to individual student Learning Styles as organized into one of the recognized classifications. For example “do you teach to accommodate those differences” (Learning Styles). Agreement with statements like these might reflect a belief that educators feel like they have to say they use them in order to respect any/all individual differences, rather than Learning Styles specifically. In addition this is still a self-report of a behavior, or planned behavior. It would be useful, in further work, to measure actual behavior; how many educators have actually designed distinct versions of educational resources, aligned to multiple specific individual student Learning Styles? This would appear to be a critical question when determining the impact of the Learning Styles neuromyth.

The studies give us little insight into why belief in Learning Styles persists. The theory is consistently promoted in teacher-training textbooks (National Council on Teacher Quality, 2016) although there is some evidence that this is in decline (Wininger et al., 2019). If educators are themselves screened using Learning Styles instruments as students at school, then it seems reasonable that they would then enter teacher-training with a view that the use of Learning Styles is a good thing, and so the cycle of belief would be self-perpetuating.

We have previously shown that the research literature generally paints a positive picture of the use of Learning Styles; a majority of papers which are “about” Learning Styles have been undertaken on the basis that matching instruction to Learning Styles is a good thing to do, regardless of the evidence (Newton, 2015). Thus an educator who was unaware of, or skeptical of, the evidence might be influenced by this. Other areas of the literature reflect this idea. A 2005 meta-analysis published in the Journal of Educational Research attempted to test the effect of matching instruction to the Dunn and Dunn Learning Styles Model. The results were supposedly clear;

“results overwhelmingly supported the position that matching students' learning-style preferences with complementary instruction improved academic achievement” (Lovelace, 2005).

A subsequent publication in the same journal in 2007 (Kavale and LeFever, 2007) discredited the 2005 meta-analysis. A number of technical and conceptual problems were identified with the 2005 meta-analysis, including a concern that the vast majority of the included studies were dissertations supervised by Dunn and Dunn themselves, undertaken at the St. John's University Center for the Study of Learning and Teaching Styles, run by Dunn and Dunn. At the time of writing (August 2020), the 2005 meta-analysis has been cited 292 times according to Google Scholar, whereas the rebuttal has been cited 38 times. A similar pattern played out a decade earlier, when an earlier meta-analysis by R Dunn, claiming to validate the Dunn and Dunn Learning Styles model, was published in 1995 (Dunn et al., 1995). This meta-analysis has been cited 610 times, whereas a rebuttal in 1998 (Kavale et al., 1998), has been cited 60 times.

An early attempt by Dunn and Dunn to promote the use of their Learning Styles classification was made on the basis that teachers would be less likely to be the subject of malpractice lawsuits if they could demonstrate that they had made every effort to identify the learning styles of their students (Dunn et al., 1977). This is perhaps an extreme example, but reflective of a general sense that, by identifying a supposed learning style, educators may feel they are doing something useful to help their students.

A particular issue to consider from a pragmatic perspective is that of study quality. Many of the studies did not include key indicators of the quality of survey responses (Kelley et al., 2003; Bennett et al., 2011). For example, none of the studies use a defined, representative sample, and very few include sufficient information to allow the calculation of a response rate. From a traditional research perspective, the absence of these indicators undermines confidence in the generalizability of the findings reported here. Pragmatic research defines itself as identifying useful answers to research questions (Newton et al., accepted). From this perspective then, we considered it useful to still proceed with an analysis of these studies, and consider the findings holistically. It is useful for the research community to be aware of the limitations of these studies, and we report on these measures of study quality in Appendix 1. We also think it is useful to report on the evidence, within our findings, of a lack of clarity regarding what is actually meant by the term “Learning Styles.” Taken all together these analyses could prompt further research, using a large representative sample with a high response rate, using a neutral invitation, with a clear explanation of the difference between Learning Styles and styles of Learning. Perhaps most importantly this research should focus on whether educators act on their belief, as described above.

Some of these limitations, in particular those regarding representative sampling, are tempered by the number of studies and a consistency in the findings between studies, and the overall very high rates of self-reported belief in Learning Styles. Thirty-four samples report on this question, and in all studies, the majority of participants agree with the key question. In 25 of the 34 samples, the rate of agreement is over 80%. Even if some samples were not representative, it would seem unlikely to affect the qualitative account of the main finding (although this may be undermined by the other limitations described above).

A summary conclusion from our findings then is that belief in matching instruction to Learning Styles is high and has not declined, even though there is currently no evidence to support such an approach. There are a number of methodological issues which might affect that conclusion, but when taken all together these are insufficient to completely alleviate the concerns which arise from the conclusion; a substantial majority of educators state belief in a technique for which the lack of evidence was established in 2004. In the final section of the discussion here we then consider, from a pragmatic perspective, what are the useful things that we might do with these findings, and consider what could be done to address the concerns which arise from them.

Our findings present some limited evidence that training has some effect on belief in matching instruction to Learning Styles. Only four studies looked at training, but in those studies the percentage who reported that belief in the efficacy of matching instruction to individual Learning Styles dropped from 78.4 to 37.1%. It seems reasonable to conclude that there is a risk of social desirability bias in these studies; if participants have been given training which explains the lack of evidence to support Learning Styles, then they might be reasonably expected to disagree with a statement which supports matching. Even then, for 37.1% of participants to still report that they believe this approach is effective is potentially concerning; it still represents a substantial number of educators. Perhaps more importantly these findings are, like many others discussed here, a self-report of a belief, rather than a measure of actual behavior.

There is already a substantial body of literature which identifies Learning Styles as a neuromyth, or an “urban legend.” A 2018 study analyzed the discourse used in a sample of this literature and concluded that the language used reflected a power imbalance wherein “experts” told practitioners what was true or not. A conclusion was that this language may not be helpful if we truly want to address this widespread belief in a method that is ineffective (Smets and Struyven, 2018). We have previously proposed that a “debunking” approach is unlikely to be effective (Newton and Miah, 2017). It takes time and effort to identify student learning styles, and much more effort to then try and design instruction to match those styles. The sorts of instructors who go to that sort of effort are likely to be motivated by a desire to help their students, and so to be told that they have been propagating a “myth” seems unlikely to be news that it is well received.

Considering these limitations from a pragmatic perspective, it does not seem that training, or debunking, is a useful approach to addressing widespread belief in Learning Styles. It is also difficult to determine whether training has been effective when we have limited data regarding the actual use of Learning Styles theory. It may be better to focus on the promotion of techniques that are demonstrably effective, such as retrieval practice and other simple techniques as described in the introduction. There is evidence that these are currently lacking from teacher training (National Council on Teacher Quality, 2016). Many evidence-based techniques are simple to implement, for example the use of practice tests, the spacing of instruction, and the use of worked examples (Young et al., 2014; Weinstein et al., 2018). Concerns exist about the generalizability of education research findings to specific contexts, but these concerns might be addressed by the use of a pragmatic approach (Newton et al., accepted).

In summary then, we find a substantial majority of educators, almost 90%, from samples all over the world in all types of education, report that they believe in the efficacy of a teaching technique that is demonstrably not effective and potentially harmful. There is no sign that this is declining, despite many years of work, in the academic literature and popular press, highlighting this lack of evidence. To understand this fully, future work should focus on the objective behavior of educators. How many of us actually match instruction to the individual Learning Styles of students, and what are the consequences when we do? Does it matter? Should we instead focus on promoting effective approaches rather than debunking myths?