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Scientists have yet to prove that students learn better when taught according to their preferred modality, a new study suggests
By Meris Stansbury, Associate Editor
According to a new review of existing research, scientists have yet to show conclusively that students learn better when they are taught according to their preferred modality—and the study’s authors say it’s time to stop funding a technique that hasn’t been proven effective.Commissioned by Psychological Science in the Public Interest, the main journal of the Association for Psychological Science, the study is called "Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence."
It was written by Harold Pashler, professor of psychology at the University of California, San Diego; Mark McDaniel, professor of psychology at Washington University in St. Louis; Doug Rohrer, professor of psychology at the University of South Florida; and Robert Bjork, distinguished professor and chair of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Related links
"Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence"
International Society for Technology in Education
National Center for Technology Innovation
Carnegie Mellon
International Society for Technology in Education
National Center for Technology Innovation
Carnegie Mellon
About the Authors
Harold Pashler is Professor of Psychology and a faculty member of the Cognitive Science Program at the University of California, San Diego. His main areas of interest are human learning and the psychology of attention. Pashler’s learning research focuses on methods for optimizing acquisition and retention of knowledge and skills. In the field of attention,
Pashler’s work has illuminated basic attentional bottlenecks as well as the nature of visual awareness. Pashler is the author of ThePsychology of Attention (MIT Press, 1998) and the editor of Stevens’ Handbook of Experimental Psychology (Wiley, 2001). He received the Troland Prize from the National Academy of Sciences for his studies of human attention, and was
elected to membership in the Society of Experimental Psychologists.
Harold Pashler is Professor of Psychology and a faculty member of the Cognitive Science Program at the University of California, San Diego. His main areas of interest are human learning and the psychology of attention. Pashler’s learning research focuses on methods for optimizing acquisition and retention of knowledge and skills. In the field of attention,
Pashler’s work has illuminated basic attentional bottlenecks as well as the nature of visual awareness. Pashler is the author of ThePsychology of Attention (MIT Press, 1998) and the editor of Stevens’ Handbook of Experimental Psychology (Wiley, 2001). He received the Troland Prize from the National Academy of Sciences for his studies of human attention, and was
elected to membership in the Society of Experimental Psychologists.
Mark McDaniel is Professor of Psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, with a joint appointment in Education.
He received his PhD from the University of Colorado in 1980. His research is in the general area of human learning and memory, with an emphasis on prospective memory, encoding and retrieval processes in episodic memory, learning of complex concepts, and applications to educational contexts and to aging. His educationally relevant research includes
work being conducted in actual college and middle-school classrooms. This research is being sponsored by the Institute of Educational Sciences and the James S. McDonnell Foundation, and his work is also supported by the National Institutes of Health. McDaniel has served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,Memory, and Cognition and Cognitive Psychology and as President of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association, and he is amfellow of Divisions 3 and 20 of the American Psychological Association. He has published over 200 journal articles, book chapters, and edited books on human learning and memory, and is the coauthor, with Gilles Einstein, of two recent books:
Memory Fitness: A Guide for Successful Aging (Yale University Press, 2004) and Prospective Memory: An Overview and Synthesis of an Emerging Field (Sage, 2007).
He received his PhD from the University of Colorado in 1980. His research is in the general area of human learning and memory, with an emphasis on prospective memory, encoding and retrieval processes in episodic memory, learning of complex concepts, and applications to educational contexts and to aging. His educationally relevant research includes
work being conducted in actual college and middle-school classrooms. This research is being sponsored by the Institute of Educational Sciences and the James S. McDonnell Foundation, and his work is also supported by the National Institutes of Health. McDaniel has served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,Memory, and Cognition and Cognitive Psychology and as President of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association, and he is amfellow of Divisions 3 and 20 of the American Psychological Association. He has published over 200 journal articles, book chapters, and edited books on human learning and memory, and is the coauthor, with Gilles Einstein, of two recent books:
Memory Fitness: A Guide for Successful Aging (Yale University Press, 2004) and Prospective Memory: An Overview and Synthesis of an Emerging Field (Sage, 2007).
Doug Rohrer is Professor of Psychology at the University of South Florida. He received his doctoral degree in Psychology from the University of California, San Diego ,and he was a faculty member at George Washington University before moving to the University of South Florida. Before attending graduate school, he taught high-school mathematics for several years.
Most of his research concerns learning and memory, with a recent emphasis on learning strategies.
Most of his research concerns learning and memory, with a recent emphasis on learning strategies.
Robert A. Bjork is Distinguished Professor and Chair of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on human learning and memory and on the implications of the science of learning for instruction and training. He has served as Editor of Memory & Cognition and Psychological Review (1995–2000), Coeditor of Psychological Science in the Public Interest (1998–2004), and Chair of the National Research Council’s Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement of Human Performance. He is a past president or chair of the Association for Psychological Science (APS), the Western Psychological Association, the Psychonomic Society, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the
Council of Editors of the American Psychological Association (APA), and the Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology. He is a recipient of UCLA’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Scientist Lecturer and Distinguished Service to Psychological Science Awards, and the American Physiological Society’s Claude Bernard Distinguished Lecturership Award.
Council of Editors of the American Psychological Association (APA), and the Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology. He is a recipient of UCLA’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Scientist Lecturer and Distinguished Service to Psychological Science Awards, and the American Physiological Society’s Claude Bernard Distinguished Lecturership Award.
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