Lack of Evidence

Educational psychologists are generally critical of the lack of evidence and dubious theoretical grounds for learning style models. According to Stahl, "the reason researchers roll their eyes at learning styles research is the utter failure to find that assessing children's learning styles and matching to instructional methods has any effect on their learning."

A literature review by a team from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne identified 71 different theories of learning style. In conducting the review, Coffield and his colleagues selected 13 of the most influential models for closer study, including most of the models cited on this page. The researchers examined the theoretical origins and terms of each model, and the instrument that was purported to assess types of learning style defined by the model. They analyzed the claims made by the author(s), external studies of these claims, and independent empirical evidence of the relationship between the 'learning style' identified by the instrument and students' actual learning.

One of the most widely-known theories assessed by Coffield's team was the visual, auditory and kinaesthetic (VAK) learning styles model. The conclusions about the VAK model were unequivocal:

Despite a large and evolving research program, 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

Another model, Gregorc's Style Delineator (GSD), was found to be "theoretically and psychometrically flawed" and "not suitable for the assessment of individuals." In fact, Coffield's team found that none of the most popular learning style theories had been adequately validated through independent research, leading to the conclusion that 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."

The Newcastle team are not alone in their judgment. Demos, a UK think tank, published a report on learning styles prepared by a group chaired by Exeter University's David Hargreaves that included Usha Goswami from Cambridge University and David Wood from the University of Nottingham. The Demos report said that the evidence for learning styles was "highly variable", and that practitioners were "not by any means frank about the evidence for their work."

Cautioning against interpreting neuropsychological research as supporting the applicability of learning style theory, John Geake, Professor of Education at the UK's Oxford Brookes University, and a research collaborator with Oxford University's Center for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain, commented that

We need to take extreme care when moving from the lab to the classroom. We do remember things visually and aurally, but information isn't defined by how it was received.