Week 3: Learning Styles critique (Reynolds, N.D.)

Cognitive Styles and Alternatives

Gordon Pask (1976) identified two learning strategies:

• holist: learning in relation to the 'whole'. Pask described these as 'comprehension learners'
• serialist: a more detailed, step-by-step approach from one idea to the next/ Pask called these 'operation learners'

Pask identified a third style - 'versatility' -which was maintained as the best. Such learners showed an ability to use either strategy when necessary.

Research then began to place more emphasis on the 'conscious choices' made in selecting an approach to a learning task. This led to Marton & Saljo (1976) describing two 'levels of processing' > deep and surface. Marton & Saljo (1976) see approach to learning as context-dependent rather than as an indication of personality, a theme strongly advocated by Laurillard 1979) who concluded that students chose learning strategies based on their perceptions of the nature of the subject matter to be learned.

The conditions in which people learn also affects whether they adopt a 'deep' or' surface' approach.  

Surface learning occurs due to:

• anxiety (Fransson, 1977)
• heavy workload (Ramsden & Entwhistle, 1981)
• assessment methods which reward reproduction of information rather than evidence of deeper understanding (Dart & Clarke, 1991)

Deep learning occurs when:

• subject matter is relevant to students' interests (Fransson, 1977)
• teacher is supportive and enthusiastic (Ramsden, 1979)
• students have opportunities to manage their own learning (Ransden & Entwhistle, 1981)

Question: do differences in a student's learning approach reflect a characteristic of personality or a conscious choice among possible strategies resulting from the individual's perception of the nature of the learning task & its social and institutional context?

The critical theorists raise more fundamental questions about the place given to notions of learning style of any kind.

 

Learning Styles: a Critical Perspective

N.B. from Getting to grips with Assessment - Brown & Smith. Authors state that 'Assessment should be free of bias...assessment methods as far as possible should be varied to support different learning styles and abilities...."

According to Reynolds, adult and professional education (andragogy) focuses predominantly on method and technique and the development of the 'whole person' using participation and experiential learning methods. However the author believes that andragogy - or 'self-directed learning' - does not place sufficient importance on the social or historical context of learning. Reynolds cites Henry Giroux (1981) who was critical of a learner-centred approach in the classroom, believing that it denied the reality of 'power and privilege' that are characteristic of the real-world. Giroux believed that while such an approach might lead to happier learners it risks denying them the opportunity to explore and experience power relationships that they will have to negotiate in their own social context outside of the classroom.

Question (me): how far should tutors go to accommodate the learning styles of their students?
Question (Reynolds): Does the very concept of learning styles eclipse the notion that people learn differently according to their social context and background?

Reynolds highlights a case study of Navajo children who were reluctant to engage in classroom discussion. An analysis using learning styles classifications did not provide any useful insights on how to elicit greater participation, reducing the students' abilities along with their opportunities to learn. But when the questions were 'contextualised' - i.e. focused on issues that were of importance to Navajo culture - the children's participation increased significantly along with their analytical skills. Research highlighted the importance of situating learning within a relevant social context and the risk of decontextualising the learning process.

Question (me): to what extent does the 'professional' context of students on the PhD programme supercede their 'socil-political' context?
Question (me): how do tutors on the PhD programme negotiate the diverse contexts of the cohort?

Reynolds cites Welton's (1987) belief that in adult education there is too great an emphasis on psychology and the individual with too little acknowledgement of the way in which the social reality of power and privilege impacts on how people learn and develop.

Question (Reynolds): does a decontextualised and depoliticised approach to education reinforce discrimination on grounds of difference?

Reynolds believes that the learning style approach changes development practice both indirectly, by decontextualising learning, and directly by causing a vocabulary of discrimination to be used under the guise of 'educational practice'. The concept of learning styles risks reinforcing social inequality in the workplace through encouraging workers to think in stereotypes and 'trivialising human complexity' (Kolb, 1984). Reynolds also suggests that the learning styles approach could be interpreted as favourable to the politics of 'multi-culturalism', where culture is depoliticised and the social importance of difference is replaced by 'gestures of acceptance, interest or concern' by the more powerful majority. While appearing to welcome racial and gender differences learning style theory fails to acknowledge the power relations that have given rise to just such social inequality.

In attempting to measure the differences in how people approach learning there is a risk of compounding inequality by failing to acknowledge the social nature of difference.