the view from the signpost: learning styles

Discovering that some popular teaching approaches (Learning Styles, Brain Gym, Thinking Hats) have less-than-robust support from research has prompted teachers to pay more attention to the evidence for their classroom practice. Teachers don’t have much time to plough through complex research findings. What they want are summaries, signposts to point them in the right direction. But research is a work in progress. Findings are often not clear-cut but contradictory, inconclusive or ambiguous. So it’s not surprising that some signposts – ‘do use synthetic phonics, ‘don’t use Learning Styles’ – often spark heated discussion. The discussions often cover the same ground. In this post, I want look at some recurring issues in debates about synthetic phonics (SP) and Learning Styles (LS).

Take-home messages

Synthetic phonics is an approach to teaching reading that begins by developing children’s awareness of the phonemes within words, links the phonemes with corresponding graphemes, and uses the grapheme-phoneme correspondence to decode the written word. Overall, the reading acquisition research suggests that SP is the most efficient method we’ve found to date of teaching reading. So the take-home message is ‘do use synthetic phonics’.

What most teachers mean by Learning Styles is a specific model developed by Fleming and Mills (1992) derived from the theory behind Neuro-Linguistic Programming. It proposes that students learn better in their preferred sensory modality – visual, aural, read/write or kinaesthetic (VARK). (The modalities are often reduced in practice to VAK – visual, auditory and kinaesthetic.) But ‘learning styles’ is also a generic term for a multitude of instructional models used in education and training. Coffield et al (2004) identified no fewer than 71 of them. Coffield et al’s evaluation didn’t include the VARK or VAK models, but a close relative – Dunn and Dunn’s Learning Styles Questionnaire – didn’t fare too well when tested against Coffield’s reliability and validity criteria (p.139). Other models did better, including Allinson and Hayes Cognitive Styles Index that met all the criteria.

The take-home message for teachers from Coffield and other reviews is that given the variation in validity and reliability between learning styles models, it isn’t worth teachers investing time and effort in using any learning style approach to teaching. So far so good. If the take-home messages are clear, why the heated debate?

Lumping and splitting

‘Lumping’ and ‘splitting’ refer to different ways in which people categorise specific examples; they’re terms used mainly by taxonomists. ‘Lumpers’ tend to use broad categories and ‘splitters’ narrow ones. Synthetic phonics proponents rightly emphasise precision in the way systematic, synthetic phonics (SSP) is used to teach children to read. SSP is a systematic not a scattergun approach, it involves building up words from phonemes not breaking words down to phonemes, and developing phonemic awareness rather than looking at pictures or word shapes. SSP advocates are ‘splitters’ extraordinaire – in respect of SSP practice at least. Learning styles critics, by contrast, tend to lump all learning styles together, often failing to make a distinction between LS models.

SP proponents also become ‘lumpers’ where other approaches to reading acquisition are concerned. Whether it’s whole language, whole words or mixed methods, it makes no difference… it’s not SSP. And both SSP proponents and LS critics are often ‘lumpers’ in respect of the research behind the particular take-home message they’ve embraced so enthusiastically. So what? Why does lumping or splitting matter?

Lumping all non-SSP reading methods together or all learning styles models together matters because the take-home messages from the research are merely signposts pointing busy practitioners in the right direction, not detailed maps of the territory. The signposts tell us very little about the research itself. Peering at the research through the spectacles of the take-home message is likely to produce a distorted view.

The distorted view from the signpost

The research process consists of several stages, including those illustrated in the diagram below.

Each stage might include several elements. Some of the elements might eventually emerge as robust (green), others might be turn out to be flawed (red). The point of the research is to find out which is which. At any given time it will probably be unclear whether some components at each stage of the research process are flawed or not. Uncertainty is an integral part of scientific research. The history of science is littered with findings initially dismissed as rubbish that later ushered in a sea-change in thinking, and others that have been greeted as the Next Big Thing that have since been consigned to the trash.

Some of the SP and LS research findings have been contradictory, inconclusive or ambiguous. That’s par for the course. Despite the contradictions, unclear results and ambiguities, there might be general agreement about which way the signposts for practitioners are pointing. That doesn’t mean it’s OK to work backwards from the signpost and make assumptions about the research. In the diagram, there’s enough uncertainty in the research findings to put a question mark over all potential applications. But all that question mark itself tells us is that there’s uncertainty involved. A minor tweak to the theory could explain the contradictory, inconclusive or ambiguous results and then it would be green lights all the way down.

But why does that matter to teachers? It’s the signposts that are important to them, not the finer points of research methodology or statistical analysis. It matters because some of the teachers who are the most committed supporters of SP or critics of LS are also the most vociferous advocates of evidence-based practice.

Evidence: contradictory, inconclusive or ambiguous?

Decades of research into reading acquisition broadly support the use of synthetic phonics for teaching reading, although many of the research findings aren’t unambiguous. One example is the study carried out in Clackmannanshire by Rhona Johnston and Joyce Watson. The overall conclusion is that SP leads to big improvements in reading and spelling, but closer inspection of the results shows they are not entirely clear-cut, and the study’s methodology has been criticised. But you’re unlikely to know that if you rely on SP advocates for an evaluation of the evidence. Personally, I can’t see a problem with saying ‘the research evidence broadly supports the use of synthetic phonics for teaching reading’ and leaving it at that.

The evidence relating to learning styles models is also not watertight, although in this case, it suggests they are mostly not effective. But again, you’re unlikely to find out about the ambiguities from learning styles critics. Tom Bennett, for example, doesn’t like learning styles – as he makes abundantly clear in a TES blog post entitled “Zombie bølløcks: World War VAK isn’t over yet.”

The post is about the VAK Learning Styles model. But in the ‘Voodoo teaching’ chapter of his book Teacher Proof, Bennett concludes about learning styles in general “it is of course, complete rubbish as far as I can see” (p.147). Then he hedges his bets in a footnote; “IN MY OPINION”.

Tom’s an influential figure – government behaviour adviser, driving force behind the ResearchEd conferences and a frequent commentator on educational issues in the press. He’s entitled to lump together all learning styles models if he wants to and to write colourful opinion pieces about them if he gets the chance, but presenting the evidence in terms of his opinion, and missing out evidence that doesn’t support his opinion is misleading. It’s also at odds with an evidence-based approach to practice. Saying there’s mixed evidence for the effectiveness of learning styles models doesn’t take more words than implying there’s none.

So why don’t supporters in the case of SP, or critics in the case of LS, say what the evidence says, rather than what the signposts say? I’d hazard a guess it’s because they’re worried that teachers will see contradictory, inconclusive or ambiguous evidence as providing a loophole that gives them licence to carry on with their pet pedagogies regardless. But the risk of looking at the signpost rather than the evidence is that one set of dominant opinions will be replaced by another.

In the next few posts, I’ll be looking more closely at the learning styles evidence and what some prominent critics have to say about it.

Note:

David Didau responded to my thoughts about signposts and learning styles on his blog. Our discussion in the comments section revealed that he and I use the term ‘evidence’ to mean different things. Using words in different ways. Could explain everything.

References
Coffield F., Moseley D., Hall, E. & Ecclestone, K. (2004). Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning: A systematic and critical review. Learning and Skills Research Council.

Fleming, N. & Mills, C. (1992). Not another invention, rather a catalyst for reflection. To Improve the Academy. Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education. Paper 246.