Steven a. Stahl - Critique on Multiple Intelligences

7/31/2019 Steven a. Stahl - Critique on Multiple Intelligences

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Article 14

DIFFERENT STROKES FORDIFFERENT FOLKS?

A Critique of Learn ing Styles

BY STEVEN A. STAH L

IWORKWITH a lot of different schools and listen to a lotof teachers ta lk. Nowhere have I seen a greater conflictbetween craft knowledge or wh at teachers know (or at

least think they know ) and academic knowledge or

wh at researchers know (or at least think they know ) than

in the area of learning styles. Over th e years, my

experience has told m e to trust teachers; it has also tau ght

me th at teachers craft kn owledge is generally on tar get. I

don t mean to say that teachers are always right, but they

have learned a great d eal from th eir thousand s of obser-

vations of children learning in classrooms. So, when

teachers talk about th e need to take into account

childrens learning styles w hen teaching, and researchers

roll their eyes at the sou nd of the term learning styles,there is more to it than m eets the eye.

The whole notion seems fairly intuitive. People are

different. Certainly d ifferent people might learn d iffer-

ently from each other. It m akes sense. Consider the

following from the Web site of the N ational Reading

Styles Institute, a m ajor p ropon ent of the app lication of

learning styles to the teaching of reading:

We all have personal styles that influence the

way we work, play, and make decisions. Some

people are very analytical, and they think in a

logical, sequential way. Some stud ents are v isualor au ditory learners; they learn best by seeing or

hearing. These students are likely to conform

well to traditional method s of stud y.

Some people (we call them global learners)

need an idea of the wh ole picture before they can

un derstand it, while analytic learners p roceed

more easily from the par ts to the w hole. Global

learners also tend to learn best when they can

touch what they are learning or move around

wh ile they learn . We call these styles of learning

tactile and kinesthetic. In a strictly tradi-

tional classroom, these stud ents are often a p rob-

lem for the teacher. She has trouble keepingthem still or qu iet. They seem un able to learn to

read. (http:/ / www .nrsi.com/ about.html)

This all seems reasonable, but it isnt.

Research and Learning Styles

The reason researchers roll their eyes at learning styles is

the u tter failure to find that assessing childrens learning

styles and m atching to instructional methods ha s any

effect on their learning . The area with the most research

has been the global and an alytic styles referred to in theNRSI blurb above. Over the p ast 30 years, the nam es of

these styles have chan gedfrom visual to global and

from au ditory to analyticbut the r esearch results

have not changed.

In 1978, Tarver and Dawson reviewed 15 stud ies that

matched visual learners to sight wor d ap pr oaches and

aud itory learners to p honics. Thirteen of th e stud ies failed

to find an effect, and the tw o that found the effect used

unusual methodology. They concluded:

Modality preference has not been d emonstrated

to interact significantly with the method ofteaching read ing.1

One year later, Arter and Jenkins reviewed 14 stud ies

(some of these are overlap ping), all of which failed to find

that matching children to reading method s by preferred

mod alities did any good . They concluded :

[The assumption that one can improve instruc-

tion by m atching materials to childrens mod al-

ity strengths] appears to lack even minimal

empirical support.2


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Article 14. DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS?

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Kampw irth and Bates, in 1980, foun d 24 stud ies that

looked at this issue. Again, they conclud ed:

Matching childrens mod ality strengths to read-

ing m aterials has n ot been foun d to be effective.3

In 1987, Kavale and Forness reviewed 39 stud ies

using a meta-analysis techniqu e that wou ld be more

sensitive to these effects. They foun d th at ma tching

children by read ing styles had n early no effect on

achievement. They concluded :

Although the presumption of matching instruc-

tion strategies to individual modality prefer-

ences has great intuitive appeal, little empiricalsupport for this proposition was found. Nei-

ther modality testing nor modality teaching

were show n to be [effective].4

A fifth r eview, in 1992, by Snider fou nd d ifficulties in

reliably assessing learn ing styles and a lack of convincing

research tha t such assessment lead s to improvem ent in

reading.

Recognition of ind ividuals strengths an d weak-

nesses is good practice; using this information,

however, to categorize children and prescribe

methods can be detrimental to low-performing

students. Although the idea of reading style is

superficially appealing, critical examination

should cause educators to be skeptical of this

current edu cational fad.5

These five research reviews, all published in well-

regarded journ als, found the same thing: One cannotreliably measur e children s reading styles and even if one

could, matching childr en to reading program s by

learning styles does not impr ove their learning. In other

word s, it is difficult to accur ately identify children w ho

are global and ana lytic. So-called global children d o

not do better in wh ole language program s than they

wou ld in m ore phon ics-based progr ams. And so-called

analytic children d o not do better in p honics programs

than th ey do in wh ole langu age program s. In short, time

after time, this notion of reading styles does not work.

This is an ar ea that h as been w ell researched. Many

other app roaches to matching teaching app roaches tolearning sty les have not been w ell researched, if at all. I

could not find stud ies in r efereed journals, for example,

documenting whether the use of Howard Gardners

Multip le Intelligences Mod el6 impr oved instru ction. This

does not m ean, of course, that the u se of the m odel does

not imp rove achievement, only that I could n ot find

studies validating its use. The same is true of other

learning style mod els.

One cann ot p rove a negative. Even if all of these

studies failed to find that matching children by learning

styles helps th em read better, it is always p ossible that

another study or another measure or another somethingwill find th at matching children to their p referred

learning mod ality w ill prod uce results. But in the

meantime, we have other things that we know will

impr ove children s reading a chievement. We should look

elsewhere for solutions to read ing p roblems.

Yet, the notion of read ing styles (or learning styles)

lingers on. This is true not on ly in m y talks with teachers,

but a lso in th e literature th at teachers read. The most

recent issue ofEducational Leadership includ ed, as part of a

themed issue on innov ations, several articles on learning

styles. Phi Delta Kappan also regu larly contains articles on

learning styles, as do other pu blications intend ed for

teachers.

Research into Learning Styles

Amon g others, Marie Carbo claims that h er learning

styles work is based on research. [I d iscuss Carbo becau se

she pu blishes extensively on h er mod el and is very

prom inent on the w orkshop circuit. In th e references for

this article, I cite a few examples of her numerous

writings on th e topic.7] But given the overw helmingly

negative findings in the p ublished research, I won dered

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wh at she was citing, and about a d ecade ago, I thought it

wou ld be interesting to take a look. Reviewing her

articles, I foun d that ou t of 17 stud ies she h ad cited, only

one was p ublished.8 Fifteen were doctoral dissertations

and 13 of these came ou t of one u niversitySt. John s

University in N ew York, Carbos alma m ater. None of

these had been in a p eer-refereed journal. When I looked

closely at the d issertations and other m aterials, I found

that 13 of the 17 stud ies that sup posedly sup port h erclaim had to do w ith learning styles based on something

other th an m odality. In 1997, I foun d 11 add itional

citations. None of these was pu blished, eight w ere disser-

tations, and six of these came from St. John s. In short, the

research cited wou ld not cause anyone to change his or

her mind about learning styles.

What Do People Mean by Learning Styles?

Modality refers to one of the m ain avenu es of sensation

such as vision and hearing. I have only talked ab out

mod ality-based read ing styles because th ese are both thebest researched and the most heavily prom oted. The

Na tional Reading Styles Institute claims that it has

worked with over 150,000 teachers, and its adver tise-

ments seem to be everywh ere. Furtherm ore, these notions

of visual and aud itory learners or global and

analytic learners have been aroun d for a long time and

have found th eir way into a num ber of different

program s, not just the N RSI program s.

There are other w ays of looking at learning styles.

People have prop osed that childr en vary not on ly in

perceptual styles, but on a h ost of different d imensions.

To name a few, people have suggested th at children a reeither two-dim ensional/ three-dimensional, simulta-

neous/ sequential, connecting/ comp artmentalizing,

inventing/ reprod ucing, reflective/ impu lsive, field

depend ent/ field independ ent, and so on.

Som e of these are learning preferences, or how a n

individu al chooses to work. These might includ e wh ether

a person p refers to wor k in silence or with m usic playing,

in bright light or d im light, with a par tner or alone, in a

warm room or a cool room, etc.

Som e of these are cognitive styles, such as wh ether a

person tend s to reflect before making a choice or makes it

impu lsively, or w hether a p erson tends to focus on detailsor sees the big p icture.

Som e of these arepersonality types, such as wh ether a

person is introverted or extroverted.

Som e of these are aptitudes, like many of How ard

Gardn ers m ultiple intelligences. Gardner suggests that

people vary along at least seven different d imensions

linguistic or the ability to use language, logico-mathematical

or th e ability to use reasoning especially in m athematics,

spatial or the ability to use images or pictures, bodily-kines-

thetic or the ability to control movem ent, musical, int erper-

sonal or the ability to w ork w ith people, and intrapersonal

or the thinking don e inside on eself. The last two are m ore

like personality types, rather than ap titud es or even

learning styles. The others are Gard ners attemp t to

expand the notion of wh at we th ink is intelligent behavior

to peop le who are skilled in mu sic, or dan ce, or even in

interpersonal relations. In contrast to th e trad itional

vision of learning styles as either/ or categories (either a

person is visual or h e or she is au ditory), multiple intelli-

gences are p ut forth by Gard ner as separate abilities. Achild may be strong in a few of these areas, or non e of

these areas.

What is a teacher to d o with all this? If there are

children wh o prefer to work w ith mu sic, then the teacher

might either provid e Walkmans for those who pr efer

mu sic or play mu sic openly and prov ide earplugs for

those who d ont. If there are children w ho p refer to w ork

in bright light, the teacher might seat those childr en over

by the wind ow. Children wh o like to snack wh ile reading

can be allowed to eat d uring class (healthy foods, of

course). It w ould be easy to see how accomm odating all

of these preferences in a class could lead to chaos. Howwould a teacher lectur e, give assignm ents, or even call to

order a class in w hich a sizable prop ortion of the students

was w earing earplugs? Or how d oes one regulate the

temp erature so part of the room is war m and part cool?

Others have u sed learning styles theory as a way of

making su re that all the needs of diverse learners are

being met. Marguerite Radenich u sed Gard ners mod el to

examine literature stud y guides.9 Her ideal was one that

incorporated all of these ways of knowing into an

integrated w hole to be used to stu dy adolescent liter-

ature. Thus, Gardners model was u sed here to create

more mu ltidimensional instruction. This is very d ifferent

from using these different styles to segregate children

into group s where they w ould receive fairly one-dimen -

sional instruction.

Thoughtful edu cators have tried to make this work,

and perhap s it is workable, but trying to meet all of the

preferences of a group of children w ould seem to take

energy that w ould be better spent on other things. This is

especially true since no one has pr oven that it w orks.

Learning Styles and Fortune Telling

Why d oes the notion of learning styles have su chendu ring pop ularitydespite the lack of sup porting

evidence? I believe that this ph enomenon has a lot in

common w ith fortun e telling.

You go to see a fortu ne teller at a circus. She looks

you over and makes some quick jud gmentshow young

or old you are, how n icely you are dressed, whether you

app ear anxious or sad or lonelyand based on these

jud gm ents, tells you r for tu ne. The fortune sh e tells may

be full of simp le and am biguous statementsyou w ill

be successful at you r n ext venture, you will be lucky at

love, or may be mor e complexyou are successful at


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home, but someone is jealous; make su re you wa tch

you rself. Either w ay, the statemen ts are specific enou gh

so that they sound pred ictive, but am biguous enou gh

that they could app ly to a num ber of situations.

When w e read th e statements on a Learning Style

Inventory, they sound enough like us that w e have a flash

of recognition. These inven tories typ ically consist of a

series of forced choices, such as th ese from Marie Carbos

Reading Style Inventory, Intermediate, 1995.10

a. I always like to be told exactly how I should d o my

reading work.

b. Sometimes I like to be told exactly how I shou ld do

my reading work.

c. I like to decide how to d o my reading work by myself.

Or

a. I like to read in the morning.

b. I dont like to read in the morning.

a. I like to read after lunch.

b. I dont like to read after lunch.

a. I like to read at night.

b. I dont like to read at night.

Or

a. I read best wh ere its quiet with no m usic playing.

b. I read best where there is music playing.

c. I read about the same wh ere its quiet or wh ere there

is mu sic playing.

Since all of us h ave som e preferences (my experience

is that adu lts have clear preferences about m usic during

read ing, especially), these items tend to r ing tru e. Like the

fortunes told b y the fortu ne teller, these statements at first

light seem specific enough to captu re real d istinctions

amon g p eople. But the p roblem w ith choices like these is

that p eople tend to m ake the same choices. Nearly

everybody w ould prefer a d emonstration in science class

to an un interrup ted lecture. This does not mean that such

individu als have a visual style, but that good science

teaching involves demonstrations. Similarly, nearly

everybody w ould agree that one learns more about

playing tennis from p laying than from w atching someone

else play. Again, this does not m ean that p eople are

tactile/ kinesthetic, but th at this is how on e learns to p lay

spor ts. Many of these learn ing styles are not really

choices, since comm on sense wou ld sug gest that therewou ld not be mu ch variance amon g peop le. In the class

sample prov ided w ith the Reading Style Inventory above,

for examp le, 96 percent of the fifth-grader s assessed

preferred quiet to working w hile other people were

talking, 88 percent p referred quiet to music, 79 percent

picked at least two times a day wh en they preferred to

work, 71 percent had no p reference about temperatu re,

and so on. Virtually all of the questions had on e answer

preferred by a m ajority of the students.

The questions are just specific enough to soun d like

they mean someth ing, but vagu e enough to allow

different interp retations. For example, does mu sic refer

to Mozart or Rap? Obviously, ones choices wou ld be

different for different types of music. A more serious

question wou ld arise over the teacher direction item.

Doesnt the amou nt of teacher d irection needed d epend

on th e d ifficulty of the assignment? There are some

assignm ents that are self evident and do not n eed mu ch

teacher d irection, but wh en w ork gets comp lex, stud ents

need more d irection. This is not a matter of preference.The other major problem with these inventories is

that th ere are no qu estions about a childs reading ability.

So children w ith reading p roblems are given the same

measure as children wh o are doing w ell in reading. This

has tw o effects. First, there is a bias on some item s for

children with different abilities. Consider th ese two

items, also from the Carbo inventory:

a. Its easy for me to remember rules about sound ing

out words.

b. Its hard for me to remember rules about sound ing

out words.

Or

a. When I write words, I sometimes mix up the letters.

b. When I write word s, I almost never mix up the let-

ters.

Children with r eading p roblems are more likely to

answer that they d o not remember ph onics rules and that

they sometimes mix up the letters. According to the

learning styles research reports, such children are likely

to be considered as hav ing a global (or visual)

preference.11 Actually, this may n ot be a preference at all,but a reflection of the childs cur rent level of reading

ability. The p otential for h arm occurs w hen children with

reading problems are classified as global (visual)

learners and thereby m iss out on impor tant instruction in

decoding, or are classified as analytic (auditory)

learners and m iss out on op portu nities to practice reading

in connected t ext.

Not including inform ation about read ing ability also

leads to some strange pr escriptions. Adults attending

learning styles workshops often get prescriptions for

beginning reading instruction method s, such as the

language experience app roach or ph onics/ linguisticapp roaches, certainly not needed by competent readers.

And for children, too, some of the app roaches may be

inapp ropr iate. The language experience approach, for

example, is best suited for childr en at th e emergent

literacy stage, when they need to learn about basic print

concepts, one-to-one matching, letter identification, and

so on.12 For a second -grader, or even a n ewly literate

adu lt, language experience may be app ropriate (if they

still have n ot m astered basic print concepts) or highly

inapp ropr iate (if they are already read ing fluently). It

dep ends on th e readers skill, not th eir learning styles.


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Reliability

If you are to u se a test, even an inventory like the one cited

above, it shou ld be reliable. If a test is reliable, tha t means

you a re going to get the sam e (or close to the same) results

every tim e you ad min ister it. If a test is 100 per cent

reliable (or has a reliability coefficient o f 1.0), then a

person w ill score exactly the same on Thursd ay as on

Tuesday. Perfection is tough to come by, so we generallywant a reliability coefficient to be .90 or h igher.13 If a test

is not reliable, or tru stworth y, then it is difficult to believe

the results. This is a problem, not on ly with inventories,

but w ith any m easure that asks subjects to report about

themselves.

Reliabilities of these measures are relatively low . The

self-reported reliabilities of Carbos Reading Style

Inventory and D unn and Dun ns Learning Style Inven-

tories are mod erate, especially for a measure of this

kindin the neighborhood of the .60s and the .70s.

Similar reliabilities are repor ted for the Myers-Briggs

Inventory, another learning styles assessment.14 Theseare lower than on e would w ant for a diagnostic measure.

And , these scores are inflated , since for many items there

is generally one answ er that n early everybody chooses.

This would tend to m ake the reliabilities higher.

The vagueness in the items may ten d to m ake the

reliabilities low. Again, how a child interp rets each item

will influence how it is answered, as w ith the teacher

direction an d mu sic examp les discussed earlier.

Test-retest reliabilities are particular ly importan t for

a measu re of learn ing styles. These moderate reliabilities

could be interpreted in tw o ways. The test itself may not

be a reliable measure of what it is supp osed to m easurethat is, a person h as a stable learning style, but th e test is

not gett ing at it. If the test is not reliable, then the infor-

mation it gives is not trustworth y.

The other possibility is that learn ing styles may

change, from mon th to mon th, or even w eek to week.

This is also problem atic. If we are talking abou t matching

a person to a situation using this instrum ent, this is a

relatively long-term (semester or academic year)

ma tching. If a persons style changes, then on e either

mu st measure learning styles frequently, or allow for

more flexible assignments.

How Reading D evelops

The Learning Style mod el assumes that different children

need d ifferent ap proaches to learn to read. Children are

different. They come to us with different p ersonalities,

preferences, ways of d oing things. H owever, the r esearch

so far shows that this has little to do with how successful

they w ill be as readers an d w riters. Children also come to

us w ith different amou nts of exposu re to written text,

with d ifferent skills and abilities, with d ifferent exposu re

to oral langu age. The research show s that th ese differ-

ences are important.

Rather than different m ethods being app ropr iate for

different children , we ough t to think abou t d ifferent

method s being ap prop riate for children at different

stages in their d evelopment. Children d iffer in their

phonemic abilities, in their ability to recognize words

autom atically, in their ability to comp rehend and learnfrom text, and in their motivation and app reciation of

literature.15 Different m ethods are ap prop riate for

different goals. For example, appr oaches that involve th e

children in reading books of their own choice are

important to develop motivated readers.16 But wh ole

language ap proaches, which rely largely on childr en to

choose the ma terials they read , tend not to be as effective

as more teacher-directed ap proaches for developing

childr ens word recognition or comp rehension.17

A language experience approach may be app ropriate

to help a kindergarten child learn basic print concepts.

The child m ay learn some w ords u sing visual cues, suchas might be taught through a w hole word method. With

some d egree of phon ological awareness, the child is

ready to learn letters and soun ds, as throu gh a ph onic

app roach. Learning about letters and sound s, in combi-

nation w ith p ractice with increasingly challenging texts,

will develop child rens ability to use ph onetic cues in

read ing, and to cross-check using context. With

add itional p ractice in w ide read ing, children w ill develop

fluent an d au tomatic word recognition. Non e of this has

anything to d o with learning styles; it has to do w ith the

childr ens current abilities and the d emand s of the task

they have to master n ext.

What Do Teachers Get out of Learning Styles

Workshops?

I have interviewed a n um ber of teachers who h ave

attended learning styles workshop s. These were

meetings of 200 to 300 teachers and p rinciples, who p aid

$129 or so to attend a one-day w orkshop or up to $500 to

attend a longer conference. They hav e found them to be

pleasant experiences with professional p resenters. The

teachers also feel that they learned something from the

worksh ops. After I pressed th em, what it seemed th atthey learned is a wide variety of reading m ethods, a

respect for ind ividual d ifferences among children, and a

sense of possibilities of how to teach read ing. This is no

small thing. However, the same information, and mu ch

more, can be gotten from a gra du ate class in the teaching

of reading.

These teachers have anoth er thing in common after

one year, they had all stopped trying to match children by

learning styles.


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REFERENCES

1. Tarver, Sara, and M. M. Dawson . 1978. Modality preference and the

teaching of reading.Journal of Learning Disabilities 11: 1729.

2. Arter, J. A., and Joseph A. Jenkins. 1979. Differential diagnosis-pre-

scriptive teaching: A critical appraisal.Review of Educational Re-

search 49: 517555.

3. Kamp wirth, T. J., and M. Bates. 1980. Modality preference and teach-

ing method . A review of the research.Academic Therapy 15: 597

605.4. Kavale, Kenneth A., and Steven R. Forness. 1987. Substan ce over

style: Assessing the efficacy of mod ality testing and teaching.Ex-

ceptional Children 54: 228239.

5. Snider, Vicki E. 1992. Learning styles and learning to read : A critique.

Remedial and S pecial Education 13: 618.

6. Gardner, Howard . 1993. Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelli-

gences. New York: Basic Books.

7. For example, Carbo, Marie. 1997. Reading styles times twen ty.Educa-

tional Leadership 54 (6): 3842; Carbo, Marie, Rita Dun n, an d Ken -

neth Du nn. 1986. Teaching students to read through their individual

learning styles. Englewo od C liffs, N.J.: Pren tice-Hall.

8. See Stahl, Steven A. 1988. Is there evidence to supp ort matching read -

ing styles and initial reading method s? A reply to Carbo. Phi Delta

Kappan 70 (4): 317322.

9. Radenich, Marguerite Cogorno. 1997. Separating the wheat from thechaff in midd le school literatur e study gu ides.Journal of Adolescent

and Adult Literacy 41 (1): 4657.

10. All examples are from Carbo, Marie. 1995.Reading Sty le Inventory In-

termediate (RSI-I); Author.

11. Carbo, M. 1988. Debunking the great phonics myth. Phi Delta Kappan

70: 226240.

12. Stahl, Steven A., and Patricia D. Miller. 1989. Whole langu age and

languag e experience appr oaches for beginning read ing: A quan ti-

tative research synthesis.Review of Educational Research 59 (1): 87

116.

13. Harr is, Albert J., and Ed ward Sipay. 1990.How to increase reading

ability. 10th ed. Wh ite Plains, N.Y.: Longm an.

14. Pittenger, David J. 1993. The utility of the Myers-Briggs Type Ind i-

cator.Review of Educational Research 63: 467488.

15. Stahl, Steven A. 1998. Und erstand ing shifts in read ing and its in-

struction, Peabody Journal of Education 73 (34): 3167.

16. Morrow , Lesley M., and Diane Tracey. 1998. Motivating contexts for

youn g childrens literacy developm ent: Imp lications for word r ec-

ognition development. In Word recognit ion in beginning literacy, ed-

ited by J. Metsala and L. Ehri. Mahw ah, N .J.: Erlbaum ; Turner,

Julianne, and Scott G. Paris. 1995. How literacy tasks influence

children s m otivation for literacy. The Reading Teacher48: 662673.

17. Stahl and Miller, op. cit., Stahl, Steven A., C. William Suttles, and

Joan R. Pagnucco. 1996. The effects of traditional and process liter-

acy instru ction on first-grad ers read ing and w riting achievemen t

and orientation toward reading.Journal of Educational Research. 89:

131144.

Steven A . Stahl is professor of reading education at the Un iversity of

Georgia and co-director of the Center for Improvement of Early Read-

ing A chievement. His research interests are in beginn ing reading and

vocabulary instruction.

FromAmerican Educator, Fall 1999, pp. 27-31. Reprinted with permission of the author and [&em]American Educator[&stop], the quarterly journal ofAmerican Federation of Teachers.

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Steven a. Stahl - Critique on Multiple Intelligences