Reporte de lectura 3.1 Psicología y desarrollo profesional

Alumna: Sandra Cristina Guerra Morales

Unidad de Aprendizaje: Psicología y desarrollo profesional

Nombre de la lectura: Stop propagating the learning styles myth

(English)

Educational psychologist with my good friend and colleague Jeroen van Merriënboer titled Urban Legends in Education». In this article they discuss a series of urban legends that permeate teaching and education, such as learning styles, the digital native, multitasking, the learning pyramid, etc.». 'Education' publishes learning styles bull!

The essence of the criticism of learning styles is that "there is no real scientific basis for the proposition that a student has a certain optimal learning style, is aware of what that personal learning style is, and/or there is a way reliable and valid way to determine this style, and optimal learning and instruction involves first determining this learning style and then aligning instruction accordingly” (Kirschner, 2017, p.3).

While this idea seems intuitively appealing and sounds like it has some degree of face validity, there are fundamental difficulties with both diagnosing learning styles and aligning instruction with these styles, they are type-based; the student is not assigned a style based on a set of scores in different dimensions, but is classified in a specific group, usually exclusive.

Proponents of the use of learning styles tend to ignore this and use arbitrary criteria such as a median or mean on a given scale to assign a person a specific style.

Another problem is related to the validity, reliability and predictive power of the learning style tests that are used.

Mayer asked the students when they did their homework and how long they worked on it. They also gave these students a "smart pen" that noted when and how long they worked on their homework. While there was a significant positive correlation between the amount of time students spent on their homework and the students' course grade as measured by the smart pen, there was no significant correlation between the course grade and the time spent on homework. homework as reported by students. Put another way, there was no real correlation between subjective self-report and objective measurement.

Additionally, nearly all students reported excess homework time. “Mayer found that when students reported their preference for verbal information as opposed to visual information, this preference was only weakly related to their actual abilities when measured objectively” (Kirschner, 2017, p.6). Clark published a decisive meta-analysis regarding student preference in opting for a certain type of instruction and found that the most frequently reported preference was, at best, uncorrelated with what and how much was learned, it was negatively correlated.

He called the latter mathematician

Regarding the reliability and validity of determining a person's learning style, Coffield et al. reviewed the 13 most used instruments to determine learning styles in terms of minimal psychometric criteria, namely, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, construct validity, and predictive validity.

It is concluded that three of the models did not meet any of the four criteria, four met only one criterion, three met two criteria, two met three criteria and only one met all four criteria, but this instrument measured cognitive styles and not learning styles.

As a thought experiment, let's ignore all the difficulties just discussed regarding the measurement and determination of learning styles, and then instead question how we should tailor instruction to preferred or determined learning styles. “The learning styles hypothesis is an important one, namely that a cross-interaction will be found in which a specific type of learner learns significantly better with an instructional method tailored to their learning style, while a different specific type of student learns better with a tailored method of instruction” (Kirschner, 2017, p.9). Only real cross-interactions can be used to confirm the learning styles hypothesis.

It is concluded that "currently, there is no adequate evidence base that justifies the incorporation of learning style assessments in general educational practice." In contrast, several recent well-designed studies contradict the learning styles hypothesis.

Those who also found nothing to support the idea that different methods of instruction, emphasizing pictorial or verbal information, were cross-beneficial for visualizers and verbalizers, respectively, were Massa and Mayer. In medical education, Cook, Thompson, Thomas, and Thomas found no support for the premise that working from problems to theory or from theory to problems would lead to better learning for sensory/concrete and intuitive/abstract students, respectively. And the list of research showing that the emperor of learning styles has no clothes is exhausting.

The Morrison, Ross, Kalman and Kemp comment that despite the extensive literature on learning styles, there are still doubts about the degree to which these styles can be combined with teaching methods that benefit learning.

"The premise that there are students with different learning styles and that they should be instructed using different instructional methods that match those styles is not a 'proven' fact, but rather a belief supported by very little scientific evidence" (Kirschner, 2017, p.12), if it exists.

The significant empirical evidence for the learning styles hypothesis is almost unrealistic.

In another note, Coffield et al. they claim that the concept of learning styles is so ill-defined that it is effectively useless for instruction. To this I can only add that if teachers say they have proof that the use of learning styles works, the 'proof' they give is mostly anecdotal.

“When evaluating our own beliefs, we tend to look for information that confirms our beliefs and ignore contrary information, even when we repeatedly find it” (Kirschner, 2017, p.13).

There is no benefit to be gained by adapting and designing education and instruction to these so-called styles. In fact, consistent with the mathematical effects of preferred instructional approaches, it may even be the case that if this is done, administrators, teachers, parents, and even students are negatively influencing the learning process and outcomes. of education and instruction.

(Español)

Psicólogo educativo con mi buen amigo y colega Jeroen van Merriënboer titulado Leyendas urbanas en la educación». En este artículo discuten una serie de leyendas urbanas que empapan la enseñanza y la educación, como los estilos de aprendizaje, el nativo digital, la multitarea, la pirámide de aprendizaje, etc.». «Educación' publica toro de estilos de aprendizaje!

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