Professor Frank Coffield conducted extensive research into over 70 theories relating to learning styles to see whether the various models corresponded to reality. The validity of learning-style questionnaires were tested to see if they really measured what they claimed. Little evidence was found to support these theories including Honey and Mumford, Dunn and Dunn and VAK.
Learning style sytems that did seem to work such as Herrmann's 'whole brain model', where a learner's learning style was considered to be adaptive to the context. Coffield's advice is:
- Don't label students then try to match learning strategies to their styles
- Use methods that address all styles; this is called 'whole brain' learning.
- Encourage learners to use unfamilliar styles, even if they dont like them at first
- Teach students how to use all styles of learning
- Students enjoy moving between styles; makes for varied and interesting lessons
Source: Coffield, F., Mosley, D., Hall, E. and Ecclestone, K. 2004. Should we be using learning styles? [Online] Available at:
https://crm.lsnlearning.org.uk/user/order.aspx?code=041540 [Accessed: 19 Jan 2010]
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