Teachers are interested in using the latest neuroscientific research findings to enhance their educational practices. However, there are also harmful misconceptions and myths that have pervaded schools, even those that are supposedly based on sound neuroscience. We wish to address this issue by highlighting a particular educational practice that claims to be grounded in neuroscience but lacks adequate evidence to support its efficacy.
This practice, commonly referred to as "learning styles," purports that individuals can benefit from receiving information in their preferred mode of sensory processing, based on their answers to a self-report questionnaire. This idea sounds reasonable, as individuals naturally have varying strengths and weaknesses, and it is possible that these differences have a basis in brain function. Advocates of learning styles argue that this practice can improve education by customizing materials to suit each student’s preferred mode of sensory processing.
However, there are several fundamental flaws with the learning styles approach. Firstly, there is no clear and coherent framework for determining preferred learning styles. Often, individuals are put into one of three categories — auditory, visual, or kinesthetic learners — based on their own perceptions. Some studies have identified over 70 models of learning styles, including "left-right brain," "holistic-serialist," "verbalizers-visualizers," and others. This lack of consistency and clarity makes it difficult to accurately identify individual learning styles.
Secondly, categorizing individuals into a specific learning style can lead to the mistaken assumption that their learning style is fixed and unchanging, which can ultimately hurt their motivation to adapt and apply themselves to new challenges.
Most significantly, however, systematic studies on the efficacy of learning styles have consistently found either no evidence or extremely weak evidence to support the idea that matching learning materials to an individual’s learning style leads to better academic performance. In other words, students will not necessarily improve just because learning materials are presented in their preferred mode of sensory processing. The Educational Endowment Foundation in the UK has concluded that learning styles have "low impact for very low cost, based on limited evidence."
These neuromyths may seem harmless, but in fact they drain valuable time and resources that could be better spent on evidence-based pedagogical practices. We argue that any educational activity that takes away from resources that can be directed towards evidence-based practices should be exposed and rejected. By promoting these neuromyths, we create false expectations and excuses that are detrimental to learning in the long term.
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