This is a controversial topic. There have been many things written about visual versus verbal learners etc. Lots of debate, and lots of opposing views and in our opinion very little robust science. Before we wade into the fray, what is actually meant by learning styles?
In our view, it is how someone learns, and of course depends on what one defines as learning. How does one learn knowledge? How does one learn to comprehend? How to apply? How to analyse? How to synthesize? How to evaluate?
Learning is the phase of getting stuff into the brain and developing the circuits that actually allow for the topic to be what we call comprehended, applied, analyzed, etc.
How does one evaluate or assess the learning? This is the bit that uses the knowledge and developed skills and allows someone to demonstrate what they have learned. Learning is not the same as being assessed for the learning! We might have missed it, but all we have seen is the loose discussion on ‘learning styles’ without any discussion on ‘assessing’ aspects. For example, how are things presented during an assessment? What tools or methods would a student use while studying, practicing vs used during a formal assessment?
It is unlikely that one size will fit all in. One learning style for all purposes, one style for assessing all learning aspects. We doubt that people learn to comprehend the same way they memorize facts. We doubt that people learn how to analyse the same way they learn how to comprehend. We doubt that people learn the same way all of the time. We doubt that people learn all subjects the same way. We doubt that a single, simple assessment or question can assess more than one or two cognitive skills at a time. We doubt that many instructors think too long about this.
We know that a course cannot be customized for each and every student on every topic for learning or assessment. That being said, a course should not be designed for only one group; how they learn and how they respond to certain type of assessment. The other students might be able to learn the desired outcomes, but in a different way. They may be able to demonstrate their mastery of the material in different ways. F or example, someone can have trouble memorizing things by rote but might be able to remember them in a narrative way. Mind you, teaching well to one group and less than ok to another will help the mark spread. Not nice.
If an instructor simply teaches to ‘marks’, they will not care about the secondary groups; as long as they get enough students to demonstrate their learning in the way defined by the instructor. We have heard it: "I got a nice bell curve, so I am a good instructor and the students performing at a lower level have not learned the material, not my fault". "The top 15-20% prove this!" This is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Using a biased assessment method does not say that the other students did not or could not learn the material.
In theory, if a certain method is best for a learner for learning, any new or fundamental base material during an assessment should match this method and then the learning assessed; this would be fair. We should be aware of the neuroscience of how learning occurs, how ‘things’ are stored, how things are retrieved, and how things in the brain inter-relate and come to our attention. For example, someone might store and initially understand things better if there are visualizations, simulation, and if things are somewhat physical to relate to, but this does not mean that the person actually thinks visually or with mental simulations based on physical objects when they actually think about the material or go to use it.
We think that it is very easy to accommodate students who cannot memorization and do recipe recitation in a course. You just have to try. Your job is to assess what they have learned, not what they have memorized.
Just like attention deficit is not really a deficit, it is a variance situation, learning mechanisms are somewhat the same. Some things can be remembered, some cannot. Some methods work with some material and not with other material. People do not learn everything the same way. How someone 'learns' is not necessarily how they use what was learned. How they use what was learned, might not match how they learned it. It is not simple.
