Visual Learners, Please Avert Your Eyes: The Death of a Myth

If only my geometry teacher had realized I was a “kinesthetic learner,” I might have understood right triangles while doing cartwheels across the classroom. Had my chemistry teacher delivered the periodic table exclusively through interpretive dance, I'd have gotten a 5 on the AP exam. Alas, being taught in the “wrong style” doomed me to decades of underachievement and ignorance.

There’s the logic of the learning styles myth, which stubbornly insists humans must be taught in alignment with their “preferred” sensory modality lest they fail to learn! The appeal is obvious: it promises individualized instruction in nifty categories (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc.), a kind of pedagogical horoscope for teachers. But like horoscopes, its predictive power is essentially nil. As Kirschner (2017) put it bluntly: stop propagating the learning styles myth.

In fact, decades of research have failed to find any credible evidence that matching instruction to supposed learning styles improves outcomes (LeBlanc, 2018; Pashler et al., 2008). Humans, as it turns out, possess an extraordinary capacity to learn through multiple modalities simultaneously: reading, listening, watching, doing, often in combination. To pretend otherwise is to hobble instruction with a pseudoscientific straitjacket. As Furey (2020) explains, the myth persists not because of evidence, but because of its seductive simplicity and commercial appeal.

Now, some will object: “But what about 504s and IEPs? Surely some students really do need instruction in a particular style?” And here it’s important to be clear: students with documented disabilities often require accommodations and modifications, and these are based on legitimate cognitive, sensory, or physical needs, not pseudo-scientific preference surveys. Providing audiobooks for a student with dyslexia, captioned videos for a student who is deaf or hard of hearing, or extended time for a student with ADHD are research-supported practices rooted in access and equity, not “learning styles.” Conflating accommodations with learning styles only muddies the waters and risks trivializing the very real supports students need.

The irony is that teachers don’t need learning styles at all to know their students. We improve curriculum and instruction by paying attention to what students bring into the classroom: their prior knowledge, cultural backgrounds, community experiences, interests, and struggles (Ladson-Billings, 2014). That is what culturally responsive pedagogy actually requires: designing instruction that is rich, connected, and adaptable, instead of flattening kids into a VAK checkbox. Differentiation, when it matters, is about scaffolding rigor, giving multiple entry points into complex ideas, and ensuring collective problem-solving. It’s not tailoring lessons to whether a teenager says they like to doodle while studying.

If we are serious about rigorous and appropriate curriculum design, the task is by no means to sort students into style boxes. Our job is to build learning experiences that are cognitively rich, socially relevant, and engaging across modalities.

Until then, I’ll be waiting patiently for my “existential learner” accommodation: credit for pondering the mysteries of the universe while staring out the window.

References:

Furey, W. (2020). The stubborn myth of “learning styles.” Education Next, 20(3), 72–79.

Kirschner, P. A. (2017). Stop propagating the learning styles myth. Computers & Education, 106, 166–171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2016.12.006

Ladson-Billings, G. (2014). Culturally relevant pedagogy 2.0: Aka the remix. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 74–84. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.84.1.p2rj131485484751

LeBlanc, T. R. (2018). Learning styles: Academic fact or urban myth? A recent review of the literature. Journal of College Academic Support Programs, 1(2), 59–66.

Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(3), 105–119. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01038.x