The truth about the best way to learn

Psychological Science tells us that the best way to study -- to increase your chances of retrieval later -- is to use multiple styles. Study smarter by making "multiple pathways" in your mind (e.g., blend verbal + visual cues), by integrating what you are learning with what you already know, and by telling your brain it's important via repeated activations (e.g., repetition). For more tips, follow the science (e.g., The Learning Scientists is a great source), not the fiction.

Exhibit a

Effective learning requires ALL of learning styles
Nearly 80% of participants in our straw poll believed the myth to be true, so if you did too, you are not alone. This widespread myth is perpetuated throughout the educational experience
Preference vs Science: While we may prefer one style of learning, it doesn't mean we learn best in that specific style
Effective learning relates directly to psychology's current memory model, the Working Memory Model
- We may prefer to use a specific learning style to manipulate the information we learn in order to have long-term retention
- Trying to only use a single learning style hurts one as a learner
  - Isolating a specific signaling system, limits the growth of other areas of the brain

Exhibit B

While people often have preferred "learning styles", this preference does not translate to learning better through that style
In fact, learning happens best when a person uses all learning styles for a given topic
Believing that students learn best with a single style can be damaging to their learning experience
Teachers who believe this myth can spread it to their students, damaging the rest of their academic career

Exhibit C

"Learning Styles" is just a term to describe the multiple different 'styles' in which we can gather information.

No one method works better than the other, learn equally throughout each of the methods. It is a matter of preference and which one you feel most motivated and comfortable with.
- Focusing on, and only using one method will hurt you more than help you.
95.5% of participants stated that they believe that you learn the best using your own personal "Learning Style"
We believed the myth because since a young age we have been told by teachers that we all learn differently and only one specific way will help us more

Exhibit D

Response from people who have learned the truth:

"You mean my teachers lied to me this whole time?"-Anonymous

Learning styles are realistically peoples’ personal learning preferences (Nancekivell, Shah, & Gelman, 2020).
When people learn in their preferred way there is no significant difference in their test scores (Nancekivell, Shah, & Gelman, 2020).
Evidence for the learning styles hypothesis is almost non-existent (Kirschner, 2017).

When you isolate a signaling system, you are handicapping your abilities to encode and retrieve (Kleinknecht, 2021).

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