The Biggest Myth In Education
Veritasium
youtube· 12:57standard
1.Introduction to Learning Styles
0:00 / 2:04The video introduces the common belief in education that individuals have preferred learning styles, such as visual, auditory, reading-writing, and kinesthetic (VARK). It highlights how people identify with these styles and the general understanding of what each style entails.
- Learning styles
- VARK
- Visual learners
- Auditory learners
- Reading-writing learners
- Kinesthetic learners
What's inside this course
- 0:00
1. Introduction to Learning Styles
The video introduces the common belief in education that individuals have preferred learning styles, such as visual, auditory, reading-writing, and kinesthetic (VARK). It highlights how people identify with these styles and the general understanding of what each style entails.
- 2:04
2. Prevalence of Learning Style Beliefs
This chapter explores the widespread belief in learning styles among teachers and the general public. It discusses how this concept aligns with the idea of individual uniqueness and how people often assume their own learning style without concrete evidence.
- 5:03
3. Testing the Learning Style Hypothesis
The video proposes a randomized controlled trial to scientifically test the learning style hypothesis. It outlines an experimental design where learners with different styles are exposed to matched and mismatched educational presentations, and their performance is then compared.
- 6:49
4. Unscientific Street Experiment
The presenter conducts an informal experiment on the street, asking people to recall items presented visually or auditorily. The results show that memory performance is not necessarily tied to a preferred learning style but rather to the use of memory strategies.
- 9:16
5. Rigorous Studies Debunk Learning Styles
This chapter details a rigorous computer-based study that categorized students as visualizers or verbalizers and then assigned them to text-based or picture-based lessons. The study found no significant difference in learning outcomes whether the instruction matched the student's preferred style or not.
- 11:52
6. Student Study Habits vs. Learning Styles
A study on university students revealed that an overwhelming majority used study strategies incompatible with their self-identified learning styles. The chapter also discusses the origin of the VARK model, highlighting that it was based on observation and intuition rather than scientific study.
Every chapter ends with a checkpoint (quiz, flashcards, retell, diagram, or prediction) and the course closes with a final boss-fight. More courses →
Full transcript of “The Biggest Myth In Education”
— 375 segments
0:00- This video is about learning styles.
0:02What kind of learner are you?
0:04- Oh yeah, I'm a visual person
0:05so I have to see things, yeah.
- Oh yeah, same.
0:06- I think visual learner.
0:08- Visual.
0:08- I mean, like, I remember
formulas like auditory.
0:11- I need to be like,
interacting with the material.
0:13- I like to learn by doing it myself.
0:15- Very hands-on.
0:16- Hands-on learner.
0:17- Hands-on?
0:18- So like, if I have a model,
I'd like to look at that
0:19and look it over.
0:20- Part of this video was
sponsored by Google Search.
0:25There is this idea in
education that everyone
0:28has their own preferred way of learning,
0:29their so-called learning style.
0:31If information is presented in accordance
0:33with the learning style, well,
then they'll learn better.
0:36Now, there are dozens of
different learning style theories,
0:39but the most common one identifies
0:41four main learning
styles, visual, auditory,
0:44reading-writing, and
kinesthetic or VARK for short.
0:47Visual learners learn best from images,
0:50demonstrations, and pictures.
0:52- People may say things, but
I can't really take it in.
0:54I just gotta see 'em act it
out or write it or something.
0:58- [Derek] Auditory learners learn best
0:59from listening to an explanation.
1:01- Like in school, I was
always engaged in the lecture
1:04and that was usually good
enough to pass a test.
1:07- [Derek] Reading-writing
learners learn best
1:09from reading and writing.
1:10- Like I can get pretty much anything
1:12out of reading a textbook or something.
1:14- [Derek] And kinesthetic
learners learn best by doing.
1:16Physically interacting with the world.
1:18- Hands-on.
1:19You have to touch things,
you have to play with things,
1:21you know, it's a contact sport.
1:23You have to do it yourself.
1:25- I want to try something
with you, a little experiment.
1:28I want to show you 10 pictures of things
1:29and I don't want you to say anything
1:31while you're looking at them,
and at the end of the 10
1:33you tell me how many you can remember.
1:35- Okay.
1:35- Okay?
- Okay.
1:36- Okay.
1:39- Now, learning styles
make intuitive sense
1:41because we know everyone is different.
1:44Some people have better spacial reasoning.
1:46Others have better
listening comprehension.
1:49We know some people are better readers
1:50while others are good with their hands.
1:53- It's sort of very much
fits with a broad strain
1:56of thought in the recent
Western tradition is,
2:00we're all unique, we're all different.
2:02And so you don't want to say, like,
2:03everybody learns the same way.
2:04That sort of conflicts with our feelings
2:07about what it means to be human.
2:09- So doesn't it make sense
that people should learn better
2:12in their own preferred learning style?
2:14Well, teachers certainly seem to think so.
2:17A survey of nearly 400
teachers from the UK
2:19and the Netherlands found
that over 90% believed
2:23that individuals learn better
when they receive information
2:26in their preferred learning style.
2:27- [Instructor] Just like every professor
2:28has a different style of teaching,
2:30you have a different style of learning.
2:32- [Instructor] But when his
teacher starts using visuals,
2:34Johnathan finds it easier to focus
2:36and understand the material
2:37so he might be a visual learner.
2:39- [Derek] Can you tell me
what that means to you?
2:42Like, what does it mean
to be a visual learner?
2:43- To me it means that
for me to learn something
2:46sometimes you need to draw
it or I need to write it down
2:48or I need to see a picture or a movie.
2:51- For example, science
classes, I get bored easily
2:54just listening and I think
it's more interesting for me
2:57to actually be able to do it.
2:59- [Derek] How do you know
that you're a visual learner?
3:01- I don't, I just assumed.
3:03- To take advantage of learning styles
3:05then teachers need to do two things.
3:08First, identify the learning style
3:10of each of their students.
3:11And second, teach each student
3:13in accordance with their learning style.
3:16On the VARK website it says,
once you know about VARK,
3:19its power to explain things
will be a revelation.
3:23But before you take an
online learning styles quiz,
3:25it's a good idea to ask, do
learning styles even exist?
3:29I mean, do you have one?
3:30And if you're taught
in accordance with it,
3:32would you learn better?
(warm instrumental music)
3:35Well, you could test this
3:36by running a randomized control trial
3:38where first you would identify learners
3:41with at least two
different learning styles,
3:42say visual and auditory and
then randomly assign learners
3:46to one of two educational presentations,
3:49one visual, one auditory.
3:51So for half of the students
3:52the experience will match
their learning style
3:55and for the other half it won't.
3:57And then you give everyone the same test.
4:00If the learning style
hypothesis is correct,
4:02the results should show better performance
4:04when the presentation
matches the learning style
4:07than when they're mismatched.
4:10I tried a very unscientific version
4:12of this experiment on the street.
4:14For some people, I matched
their learning style
4:17so I showed visual learners
pictures of 10 items,
4:21but for other visual learners
I read out the items instead.
4:26Bell, penguin, sun.
4:30- Okay, I'm maxed out.
4:31- [Derek] How many can you remember?
4:32- I don't know.
4:33- Hair, knife, duck, heart, butterfly.
4:39- Apple, bicycle, guitar.
4:42- There was a spider.
4:44Did I say eye already?
4:45- Trumpet, pear.
- Pear.
4:47- Butterfly.
- Duck.
4:48- Knife.
- Boat.
4:49- Heart.
- Knife.
4:50- Heart.
4:51- I couldn't tell you the
rest, that's all I got.
4:53- [Derek] Most people could remember
4:55only about five or six things.
4:57- Yeah, yeah.
- Six, six is not bad.
4:58- All right.
4:59- Six.
- Six out of 10
5:00which is not bad, right?
- Oh, all right, yeah.
5:02- That's a passing score.
5:03Candle.
- Oh.
5:04- Candle.
- Everyone forgets the candle.
5:05But a few could remember
substantially more,
5:09say, eight or nine items.
5:10- Bug, I don't know if I said bug.
5:12Guitar, bike, eye,
bell, spoon, sun, chair.
5:17I'm forgetting the last two.
5:19- That's pretty good.
- Eight is really good.
5:20- Oh, cool.
5:21- Nine?
- Nine out of 10.
5:22- Nine, very impressive.
5:25But the reason didn't seem to
be because the presentation
5:28matched their preferred learning style
5:30but because they employed
a memory strategy.
5:33- So as you were showing I was
making an order in my head.
5:36So as I saw more I would
just add it to the list
5:39and I was repeating the list
as I was looking at them
5:41so I could just say it out loud.
5:43- Did you try a strategy
while you were looking
5:45at those pictures?
- Yeah, yeah.
5:47So I guess I tried creating a story
5:49'cause it's easier to remember a story
5:51than just individual objects.
5:53So I tried to tie it all into one story.
5:55- This is all obviously
anecdotal evidence,
5:57but rigorous studies
like the one I outlined
6:00have been conducted.
6:01For example, one looked at
visualizers versus verbalizers
6:05instead of visual versus
auditory learners.
6:07The study was computer-based,
6:10so first students' learning
styles were assessed
6:12using questions like, would
you rather read a paragraph
6:15or see a diagram describing an atom?
6:17The researchers also provided
some challenging explanations
6:21with two buttons, visual
help or verbal help.
6:24The visual one played a short animation
6:26whereas the verbal help
gave a written explanation.
6:30From these measures combined,
the researchers categorized
6:32the students as either
visualizers or verbalizers
6:35and then the students
were randomly assigned
6:37to go through a text-based
6:39or picture-based lesson on electronics.
6:42When a student hovered
their mouse over key words
6:44in the lesson in the text-based group,
6:47a definition and clarification came up.
6:49But in the picture group,
6:50an annotated diagram was shown instead.
6:53And after the lesson,
the students did a test
6:55to assess their learning.
6:57The students whose
preferred learning style
6:58matched their instruction
performed no better on the tests
7:03than those whose
instruction was mismatched.
7:05The researchers ran the test again
7:07with 61 non-college-educated adults
7:09and found exactly the same result.
7:11But learning styles are a preference
7:14so how strongly do learners
stick to their preference?
7:18Well, in a 2018 study during
the first week of semester,
7:21over 400 students at a
university in Indiana
7:23completed the VARK questionnaire
and they were classified
7:26according to their learning style.
7:28Then at the end of the semester
7:29the same students completed a
study strategy questionnaire.
7:32So how did they actually
study during the term?
7:36Well, an overwhelming majority of students
7:38used study strategies which
were supposedly incompatible
7:41with their learning style,
7:43and the minority of students who did
7:44did not perform significantly differently
7:46on the assessments in the course.
7:49The visual auditory
reading-writing, kinesthetic
7:51or VARK model came
about from Neil Fleming,
7:54a school inspector in New Zealand.
7:56Describing the origins of VARK he says,
7:58I was puzzled when I
observed excellent teachers
8:01who did not reach some learners
and poor teachers who did.
8:04I decided to try to solve this puzzle.
8:06There are, of course, many
reasons for what I observed.
8:10But one topic that seemed
to hold some magic,
8:13some explanatory power,
8:14was preferred modes of
learning, modal preferences.
8:18And thus, VARK was born.
8:20There was no study that revealed
8:22students naturally cluster
into four distinct groups.
8:25Just some magic that might explain
8:27why some teachers can reach
students while others can't.
8:30But how can this be?
8:31If we accept that some
people are more skilled
8:34at interpreting and remembering
certain kinds of stimuli
8:36than others like visual or auditory,
8:39then why don't we see
differences in learning
8:41or recall with different presentations?
8:44Well, it's because what we
actually want people to recall
8:46is not the precise nature of the images
8:49or the pitch or quality of the sound.
8:51It's the meaning behind the presentations.
8:53There are some tasks that
obviously require the use
8:56of a particular modality.
8:58Learning about music, for example,
8:59should have an auditory component.
9:01Similarly, learning about geography
9:03will involve looking at maps.
9:05And some people will have greater aptitude
9:08to learn one task over another.
9:09Someone with perfect pitch, for example,
9:11will be better able to recall
certain tones in music.
9:14Someone with excellent
visual-spatial reasoning
9:16will be better at learning the locations
9:17of countries on a map.
9:19But the claim of learning style theories
9:21is that these preferences
9:22will be consistent
across learning domains.
9:25The person with perfect pitch
9:27should learn everything better auditorily
9:29but that is clearly not the case.
9:32Most people will learn
geography better with a map.
9:36Review articles of learning
styles consistently conclude
9:39there is no credible evidence
that learning styles exist.
9:43In a 2009 review, the
researchers note, the contrast
9:46between the enormous popularity
9:48of the learning styles
approach within education
9:51and the lack of credible
evidence for its utility is,
9:54in our opinion, striking and disturbing.
9:57If classification of
students' learning styles
9:59has practical utility, it
remains to be demonstrated.
10:03- What we're expecting is,
if your style was honored
10:06you're going to perform better than if
10:08you had some experience that
conflicted with your style.
10:11And this is where we don't see any support
10:14for the learning styles theory.
10:16- One of the reasons many
people find learning styles
10:18so convincing is because they
already believe it to be true.
10:22For example, they might already think
10:23that they're a visual learner,
and then when a teacher
10:26shows them a diagram of, say, a bike pump
10:29and suddenly the concept clicks,
10:31well, they interpret this as evidence
10:33for their visual learning style.
10:34- You already believe that
learning styles is right.
10:37When you have an experience
the first think you think is,
10:40is that in some way consistent
with learning styles?
10:42And if it is, you don't think further.
10:44- When in reality that diagram
might just be a great diagram
10:47that would have helped anyone learn.
10:49When we already believe the
world to be a certain way,
10:52then we interpret new experiences
to fit with those beliefs
10:56whether they actually do or not.
10:58So if learning styles
11:00don't improve learning, then what does?
11:02Well, there's a large body of literature
11:04that supports the claim
that everyone learns better
11:06with multimodal approaches
11:07where words and pictures
are presented together
11:10rather than either
words or pictures alone.
11:13Now there's gonna be words
as well as the picture.
11:15We're gonna see if this is any better.
11:17This is known as the multimedia effect,
11:20and it explains in part, at least,
11:21why videos can be such
powerful tools for learning
11:24when the narration
complements the visuals.
11:27Duck.
- Duck.
11:30- Heart.
- Heart.
11:32- [Derek] In my PhD research,
I found explicit discussion
11:34of misconceptions was essential
11:36in multimedia teaching
for introductory physics.
11:39- How many is that?
- Six.
11:40- Six, okay, that's good.
11:41- That is a whole 50% better.
11:43Do you think that was easier?
11:45- Yeah, yeah, 100%, 100%.
- Yeah, with the words, yeah.
11:48- Ultimately, the most
important thing for learning
11:50is not the way the
information is presented
11:53but what is happening
inside the learner's head.
11:56People learn best when
they're actively thinking
11:58about the material, solving problems
12:00or imagining what happens if
different variables change.
12:04I talked about how and why we learn best
12:06in my video, "The Science of
Thinking" so check that out.
12:10Now, the truth is, there
are many evidence-based
12:12teaching methods that improve learning.
12:14Learning styles is just not one of them.
12:18And it is likely, given the prevalence
12:20of the learning styles misconception
12:22that it actually makes learning worse.
12:24I mean, learning styles give
teachers unnecessary things
12:27to worry about, and they
make some students reluctant
12:30to engage with certain
types of instruction.
12:33And all the time and money
spent on learning styles
12:35and related training could be
better spent on interventions
12:38that actually improve learning.
12:40You are not a visual learner
nor an auditory learner
12:44nor a kinesthetic learner,
or more accurately,
12:47you are all these kinds of learner in one.
12:50The best learning experiences are those
12:52that involve multiple different ways
12:54of understanding the same thing.
12:57And best of all, this strategy works
12:59not just for one subset of
people but for everyone.
13:03(radio tuner chirping)
13:07This part of the video was
sponsored by Google Search.
13:10Now, there are lots of topics out there
13:12that are controversial like
learning styles, for example.
13:15Most people believe
learning styles are a thing
13:18whereas educational researchers
13:19find no robust evidence for them.
13:21And if you search for learning styles,
13:23you'll get lots of sites
with resources and quizzes.
13:27But if you search for
learning styles debunked,
13:29well, then you'll find articles
13:31about how there is very little evidence
13:33for the learning styles hypothesis.
13:35I think one of the most
common traps people fall into
13:37is only searching for information
13:39that confirms what they already believe.
13:42A common mistake is putting
the answer you're looking for
13:44right in the search query.
13:46A better idea is to try another search,
13:49adding debunked or false at
the end and see what comes up.
13:52And Google makes it
easy to get more detail
13:54about the source of the information.
13:56Just click the three dots
next to any search result
13:58and then you can judge for yourself
14:00whether the information is trustworthy
14:02and if you want to visit the site.
14:03A Google Search is meant to surface
14:05the most relevant
information for your query.
14:07But it's up to you to
formulate that query,
14:10try a few different searches,
14:12and assess whether the
information is reliable.
14:15And the whole point of Veritasium
is to get to the truth.
14:17So I'm excited to encourage everyone
14:19to think more critically
about how we get information.
14:22I want to thank Google for
sponsoring this part of the video
14:24and I want to thank you for watching.