29 Dec 2020
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Week 7: Learning Styles
Exploring the relation between visualizer-verbalizer cognitive styles and performance with visual
or verbal learning material (Kolloffel, 2012)
• Cognitive style and learning outcomes unrelated – learners with preference for visual materials
didn’t necessarily perform better with visual learning materials, same for auditory
• Learning results seem to be influenced by cognitive ability (spatial visualization) and the extent to
which a format affords cognitive processing
• Giving students option to choose favourite format can even be counterproductive since it may
lead them to selecting a format that is less effective for learning
Stop propagating the learning styles myth (Kirschner, 2017)
• Difference between learning preferences, and performance indicating efficient/effective learning
• Premise that there are learners with different learning styles and that they should receive
instruction using different instructional methods that match those styles not a “proven” fact, but
rather a belief backed by little, if any, scientific evidence
o Significant empirical evidence for hypothesis almost non-existent
• Lots of very fundamental problems regarding measuring learning styles
• Theoretical basis for assuming interactions between learning styles and instructional methods
very thin
• Concept of learning styles so ill-defined that it’s effectively useless for instruction
Self-regulated learning: Beliefs, techniques and illusions (Bjork et al., 2013)
• Learning how to learn critical but research shown learners prone to beliefs that an impair
effectiveness as learners, instead of enhance
• Sophisticated learning – acquire understanding of encoding and retrieval, know learning activities
and techniques that support these i.e. practice testing, spaced sessions, interleaving
• Monitoring learning requires assessing how much learning has been achieved with
selection and control of one’s learning activities in response to that monitoring ---->
• Assessing whether learning achieved is difficult – need to look at long-term
retention and transfer, but conditions under which we encode and retrieve can
create difficulties for either part
• Judgements of learning affected by fluency when recalling information – can be a
product of low-level priming and other factors unrelated to whether learning achieved
o Also affected by hindsight bias and foresight bias
• Effective learners interpret errors and mistakes as part of learning, not as part of inadequacies
• Effective learners appreciate capacity they have to learn and avoid the mindset hat one’s learning
abilities are fixed