Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic
Here’s the common wisdom:
- There are three basic learning styles – visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.
- People learn best when they’re able to access and process information according to their preferred learning style.
- Speakers should, therefore, present information in a way that appeals to the preferred learning style or styles of their audience.
But what if the common wisdom is wrong?
What if there’s little or no evidence that those styles have anything to do with how people actually learn?
I’m not arguing that people don’t have preferences and highly developed skills when it comes to sensing the world. (Preferences and skills don’t always go together, by the way. You can love music, for example, and be tone deaf.)
I just don’t know of any credible evidence that supports the claim that those preferences determine much, if anything, about how people learn.
(If you want to see for yourself some of the evidence I’ve been reading, you can view this video of a cognitive psychologist’s critique from my previous post. Or you can read “Different Strokes for Different Folks?” published in The American Educator. Or you can read “The Trouble with VAK” published in the British Education Studies Association Journal.)
I started this line of inquiry for one simple reason. People cite this theory of learning styles to justify using PowerPoint. And as you might guess from the fact that I’ve published a book titled Real Leaders Don’t Do PowerPoint (Crown, 2009), I’m not its biggest fan.
When used well (which it rarely is), PowerPoint is one way — not the only way — of helping presenters communicate information effectively. Don’t use PowerPoint simply because you want to address people’s different learning styles. Use PowerPoint only when and if it will help you explain or illustrate your ideas.
Let me give you an example. If you ask me for directions, I may draw or show you a map. (That’s visual.) I may give you spoken or written directions or both. (That’s auditory and visual.) And I may point you in certain directions. (That’s kinesthetic.) But I would do so not to appeal to the three learning styles, but to make my intention clearer. Even if you were a kinesthetic person, I would still show you a map and I would still give you verbal directions.
When I’m explaining a theory (as I’m doing now), I rely mostly on words. (That’s either visual or auditory.) I could add a picture, I suppose, like the one I’ve attached to this post. But pictures only occasionally make theoretical explanations clearer. And I have no idea how I could add a kinesthetic aspect to such an explanation.
Here’s my point. Use whatever techniques and strategies explain, illustrate, and reinforce your ideas. Come at it from as many different angles as possible. Don’t try to address the three different learning styles. Ask only how you can make your message as clear, engaging, and memorable as possible.
What do you think?
Photo courtesy of Hamed Masoumi at Flickr.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Hi Chris
I’ve been enjoying your series of posts on the learning styles myth and I agree with you that the thinking that different people each have their own style is bunkum.
However, ironically, the myth has helped some people become better presenters. That’s because they’ve started using more than just the auditory style. And it is often helpful to add a visual (as in a diagram or sketch) to help explain something. It’s helpful for most of us, not just the so-called “visual” people. Hence the new field of visual thinking.
Olivia
April 8th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Although learning styles may be a myth, I’ve discovered that people certainly have a preference to receive presentation information in a preferred format… some people like to read, some like to listen and others prefer to watch.
Very different results occur when a presentation is given using only a conference call or a teleseminar supported with slides or a fully interactive webinar when the presenter is live on camera. The success of the call-to-action at the end of the presentation truly increases as more sensory modalities are used.
It’s therefore important for the presenter to not only be concerned with his/her message but also the format in which it is delivered.
…dave
April 8th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
“Do what works” — good advice. Like Chris’s book, this cuts through the b.s.
I don’t want to get all theological on everybody, but I came across this great quote from Thich Nhat Hanh, a theologian who has no patience for theological doctrine. He said, “Discussing God is not the best use of our energy. To take good care of yourself and to take good care of living beings and of the environment is the best way to love God.”
I love this quote because — like what Chris said — it expresses wisdom that is both obvious and uncommon. Communication, to me, is about 90% intention and intuition, 10% experience-based theory.
April 8th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
As speakers we have to do (at least) two things: 1) engage our audience’s attention and interest, and 2) help them in some way that’s important to them.
If they’re not engaged, not interested, not listening, we may as well stop talking and sit down. Appealing to people’s visual, auditory, and kintesthetic preferences is certainly one way of winning their interest. There are, of course other ways: Engaging their feelings and their imaginations, for example.
Olivia, I agree with you about helping presenters think visually. The engineers I work with naturally do that. They almost always have a whiteboard in their office, and they often explain concepts to me by drawing something out. I try to get them to approach a presentation in the same way.
Dave, I’m with you too. If people are simply listening to a teleseminar, they have too many other stimuli to engage their attention, to distract them from you. (Checking their email, for example.) The more ways you can engage them the better.
DrProcter, thanks for quoting one of my favorite spiritual guides. I like theorizing, but in the end I believe that actions are the finaly proof.
May 13th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
[...] myth of learning styles. Chris Witt has recently blogged on the lack of scientific credibility of learning styles theory. But even if the theory were credible, this statement represents a confusion between verbal and [...]
May 14th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
I regularly use the idea of learning styles and find that learners respond positively because, intuitively, they sense it is true. However, I agree that the whole subject is a mine-field of untested theories.
Even so I find that the approach of Honey & Mumford is helpful. Rather than saying that we all have a preference and trainers should deliver in various approaches so that all can learn and develop, H&M suggest that learning is fully effective when a learner engages using a range of styles. They encourage a learner to strengthen those ’styles’ where they are weak.
August 25th, 2009 at 2:54 am
Interesting and thoughtful articles. Must for managerial communication batch. It would be quiet helpful if more is written on kinesthetic speaker.
Usually a kinestheti speaker is imagined as a top leader like Barrack Obama. However, the skill requisite for a kinesthetic speaker is embedded in general speaking skil. So, the myth of a kinesthetic speaker need to be removed from general psyche by more additional researched based information.
Thanks
Dr. Sujata Menon
C.K.S.V.I.M.
VADODARA, iNDIA
August 25th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Sujata, Thanks for your comments. I quite agree — it’s always helpful to have research-based information to support or correct advice and general priniciples. — Chris
October 3rd, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Its really heedful.But it would be better if more examples are discussed. However, I agree that the subject is really apart from theories and it is very good.
May 23rd, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Teleseminars are really very helpful and i always look for it on the internet.~:~
August 16th, 2010 at 9:47 am
I have to say i don’t entirely agree with your main point here. It seems to me that the “myths” are based around an over simplification of the principles put forward by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. The most common oversight is that all three learning styles exist in all of us therefore there is no absolute method that suits every person of a particular style. Secondly these styles are preferences not absolutes that must be addressed for learning to take place.
I know many studies have been carried out and found no empirical evidence but this does not necessarily disprove the theory. Science is not infallible. Not sure about that? Well according to current aerodynamic theory a bee should be unable to take off never mind fly and yet bees have been flying successfully for years.
Speaking from personal experience of some years using learning styles i have seen the effects of addressing different learning styles to engage a whole group. You can actually see different groups of people responding to the content that suits them best.
The more elegantly i integrate this theory into my teaching style the more effective it becomes. To ignore the positive impact gained from using the learning styles theory because science has yet to prove it is akin to not believing bees can fly because aerodynamics theory proves that they can’t
August 20th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Stephen,
You’re right: just because no empirical evidence has been found to support the theory doesn’t invalidate it. But the lack of supporting evidence sure shoud give its proponents reason to pause and to question their assumptions.
I don’t like basing behavior on commonly accepted, though unproven theory.
There is some validity to the theory, because so many — yourself and the many people who have responded to this post — find it helpful. But I think it needs more analysis.
I think — and this is just a tentative, totally unsupported hypothesis — that there is something about the nature of information that is visual, auditory, or kinesthetic (or some of each). So I tend to explain information in the mode(s) most appropriate to it. I struggle to present information as clearly as possible, using whichever mode makes the most sense. I usually end up using at least two, sometime three, modes. But I do not base my presentations on the “learning modes” of the listeners. I may be splitting hairs here.
By the way, aerodynamcis does not prove that bees can’t fly. That misconception was / is based on an early scientific error. It has subsequently been shown, using the laws of aerodynamcis, how bees fly.