The Modality-Specific Learning Style Hypothesis: A Mini-Review

Abstract

The impact on learning outcome of tailoring instruction and teaching toward modality-specific learning style preferences has been researched and debated for decades. Several topical reviews have concluded that there is no evidence to support the meshing hypothesis and that it represents a persistent neuromyth in education. The concept, however, is still utilized in educational practice and favored by many academics. This mini-review presents literature, which has applied explicit and rigorous methodological criteria, in relation to the meshing hypothesis. In order to demonstrate evidence for the meshing hypothesis, studies had to screen participants for their preferred learning style, assign participants to matched or non-matched conditions, and then provide the same test to assess learning for all participants, as well as presenting statistical crossover-interaction effects. Across studies that have applied these methodological criteria, the overall effect sizes were very low and non-significant, indicating that there is still no replicable statistical evidence for enhanced learning outcome by aligning instruction to modality-specific learning styles.

Stimulating Intrinsic Motivation in Millennial Students: A New Generation, a New Approach

“…However, while the numerous studies stated above have extolled the virtues of directing teaching toward modality‐specific learning style preferences, a number of research reports have also expressed skepticism about its utility (Royal and Stockdale, ; Husmann and O'Loughlin, ). A seminal review by Aslaksen and Lorås () opines that most studies that have endorsed learning styles have been based on the implicit assumption that they would benefit student learning. Hence, these studies did not execute an unbiased testing of the precise relationship between the deployment of specific learning styles and student outcomes (Newton and Miah, ; Aslaksen and Lorås, ).…”

“…A seminal review by Aslaksen and Lorås () opines that most studies that have endorsed learning styles have been based on the implicit assumption that they would benefit student learning. Hence, these studies did not execute an unbiased testing of the precise relationship between the deployment of specific learning styles and student outcomes (Newton and Miah, ; Aslaksen and Lorås, ). This apprehension of the proposed utility of learning styles is also reflected in a study by Newton and Miah (), which reported that while a majority of academics in UK higher education believed that learning styles were useful, only about a third actually chose to utilize them in their teaching.…”

“…Thus, replicable statistical evidence is still lacking to corroborate that improvements in student learning outcomes occur when instructions are congruent with modality-specific learning styles (Hayden et al, 2016;McDonald et al, 2018). A fundamental problem with studies that support the importance of learning studies in teaching are rooted in the meshing hypothesis (Pashler et al, 2008;Royal and Stockdale, 2015;Aslaksen and Lorås, 2018;Husmann and O'Loughlin, 2019). Hence, these studies have been designed with the implicit assumption that when learning material is delivered via one sensory modality it is processed in the brain independently from material delivered via other sensory modalities (Bhagat et al, 2015;Jacobs et al, 2015;Baig and Mallu, 2017;Luthar, 2017;Rowland and Kumagai, 2018;Sahoo and Mohammed, 2018).…”

“…In addition, while considerable educational efforts have been devoted to modifying teaching strategies to align with student learning, it has also been reported that a significant amount of learning occurs outside of classrooms, when students study the educational material on their own (Keister et al, 2017;Lysak et al, 2018), or in small groups (Aquino, 2011;Bulent et al, 2015;Gliddon and Cridge, 2015;Pape et al, 2018), or interactive sessions (Zumwalt et al, 2010;Cusimano et al, 2018;Jauregui et al, 2018). In fact, the evidence suggests that regardless of the nature of presentation of educational material during traditional didactic teaching, students will eventually convert the information to align with their learning preferences during their personal study time (Aslaksen and Lorås, 2018;Berger et al, 2019;Guetterman et al, 2019). Interestingly, it has also been suggested that tasks which present some degree of "desirable difficulty," are more useful for learning than those that are less challenging (Fleming and Baume, 2006;Bjork et al, 2015;Bufe and Aslan, 2018;Hickman et al, 2018).…”

Matching Instruction with Modality-Specific Learning Style: Effects on Immediate Recall and Working Memory Performance

“…There appears to be relatively few proper empirical investigations, at least in terms of the abovementioned criteria, of the meshing hypothesis. In a recent review, the overall effect sizes were very low and non-significant across studies that have applied these methodological criteria at least to some degree [17]. This indicates that there is no replicable statistical evidence for enhanced learning outcomes resulting from aligning instruction to modality-specific learning styles.…”