Some of us are visual learners. Some of us are hands-on learners. Some learn best by reading or by hearing a lecture.

We know this because we were all raised with the idea that learning styles are real and have solid evidence behind their existence.

Today we're going to shine some skeptical light upon this old idea and see if it stands up to the scrutiny of modern science.

That's today on Skeptoid.

You're listening to Skeptoid. I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.

Learning styles re-examined.

If you are involved in any remote way with education, you've almost certainly heard of the VARC questionnaire.

VA Arcade stands for Visual, Oral, Read, Write and Kinesthetic. For styles of learning. Some of us are visual learners. Some are oral learners, preferring to hear a lecture. Some learn best by reading. And others are kinesthetic or hands-on learners.

The 16 questions in the VARC system will help you nail down which of these four you are. This allows teachers to tailor the curriculum to your particular learning style. And then the theory goes, you'll learn more effectively.

Sounds like a wonderful deal, right? The only problem is it doesn't work.

The promise of learning styles is that there is an easy way to make education more effective. To break students down into groups, each of which has its own learning style. And then to teach to each group in that style which will work best.

One group may be visual learners, so we'll show them videos. One group may be auditory learners, so we'll give them lectures. Another group gets the hands-on lessons.

And then at the end of the day, each student will have learned the same lesson much more effectively than they could have with a one-size-fits-all approach. Same effort, better outcome. And as a side benefit, each student got to spend the day doing what they enjoy best. So it works out great for everyone.

With an idea having so much promises that, we've somewhat predictably seen an enormous amount of research go into it, hoping to find that perfect model.

And by enormous amount, I mean that the four styles proposed in VARC are just one of at least 71 different theories that have been proposed.

That number coming from the most often cited survey of the subject, a 2004 paper by Coffield at L titled, Learning Styles and Pedagogy in Post-16 Learning, a systematic and critical review.

Coffield and his co-authors found that most of these theorized models were dichotomies, like, are you this type of learner or that type? As a brief sample, these include convergers versus divergers, holists versus serialists, activists versus reflectors, assimilators versus accommodators, globalists versus analysts, initiators versus reasoners, and so on.

Some of these sound pretty odd, and they are, by and large, nearly all learning styles systems in use rely on three of the four VARC styles, visual auditory or kinesthetic.

And it turns out that a solid majority of educators believe that learning styles are real, and that using them will improve educational outcomes.

A 2017 paper in Frontiers in Psychology summarized?

A 2012 study demonstrated that 93% of school teachers in the UK agree with the statement, individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style.

A 2014 survey reported that 76% of UK school teacher used learning styles, and most stated that Tiduso benefited their pupils in some way.

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