Kind: captions
Language: en
this video is about learning styles what
kind of learner are you oh yeah I'm a
visual person so like I can see things
yeah I think visual learning visual I
mean like I remember formulas like
auditory I need to be like interacting
with the material I like to learn by
doing myself very Hands-On handson
learner handson so like if I have a
model I'd like to look at that and look
it over part of this video was sponsored
by Google
search there is this idea in education
that everyone has their own preferred
way of learning their so-called learning
style if information is presented in
accordance with the learning style well
then they'll learn better now there are
dozens of different learning style
theories but the most common one
identifies four main learning styles
visual auditory Reading Writing and
kinesthetic or vark for short visual
Learners learn best from images
demonstrations and pictures people may
say things but I can't really like take
it in I just got to see them act it out
or write it or something auditory
Learners learn best from listening to an
explanation like in school I was always
engaged in the lecture and that was
usually good enough to pass a test
Reading Writing Learners learn best from
reading and writing like I can get
pretty much anything out of reading a
textbook or something and can aesthetic
Learners learn best by doing physically
interacting with the world hands on you
you have to touch things you have to
play with things uh you know you have
it's a contact sport you have to do it
yourself I want to try something with
you a little experiment I want to show
you 10 pictures of things and I don't
want you to to say anything while you're
looking at them and at the end of the 10
you tell me how many you can remember
okay okay okay
okay now learning styles make intuitive
sense because we know everyone is
different some people have better
spatial reasoning others have better
listening comprehension we know some
people are better readers While others
are good with their hands it's sort of
very much fits with um a broad strain of
thought in sort of the recent western
tradition is like we're all unique we're
all different and so you don't want to
say like everybody learns the same way
that sort of conflicts with our feelings
about what it means to be human so
doesn't it make sense that people should
learn better in their own preferred
learning style well teachers certainly
seem to think so a survey of nearly 400
teachers from the UK and the Netherlands
found that over 90% believed that
individuals learn better when they
receive information in their preferred
learning style just like every Professor
has a different style of teaching you
have a different style of learning but
when his teacher starts using visuals
Jonathan finds it easier to focus and
understand the material so he might be a
visual
learner can you tell me what that means
to you like what does it mean to be a
visual learner to me it means that for
me to learn something sometimes I need
to draw it or I need to write it down or
I need to see a picture or a movie for
example science classes I get bored
easily just listening and I think it
it's more interesting for me to actually
be able to do it how do you know that
you're a visual learner I don't I just
assume to take advantage of learning
styles then teachers need to do two
things first identify the learning style
of each of their students and second
teach each student in accordance with
their learning style on the varc website
it says once you know about varc its
power to explain things will be a
revelation but before you take an online
learning styles quiz it's a good idea to
ask do learning styles even exist I mean
do you have one and if you're taught in
accordance with it would you learn
better well you could test this by
running a randomized control trial where
first you would identify Learners with
at least two different learning styles
say Visual and auditory and then
randomly assign the Learners to one of
two educational presentations one visual
one auditory so for half of the students
the experience will match their learning
style and for the other half it won't
and then you give everyone the same test
if the learning style hypothesis is
correct the results should show better
performance when the presentation
matches the learning style than when
they're
mismatched I tried a very unscientific
version of this experiment on the street
for some people I matched their learning
style so I showed visual Learners
pictures of 10 items but for other
visual Learners I read out the items
instead
Bell penguin Sun okay I'm maxed out how
many can you remember I don't know hair
uh knife duck
heart uh butterfly Apple bicycle guitar
there's a
spider did I say I already trumpet pear
butterfly knif knife boat heart knife
heart I couldn't tell you the rest
that's all I got most people could
remember only about five or six things
six six is not bad all right six six out
of 10 which is not bad right that's a
passing score candle everyone for the
candle but a few could remember
substantially more say eight or nine
items bug I don't know if I said bug
guitar bike ey Bell spoon Sun chair I'm
forgetting the last two that's pretty
good eight is really good oh cool nine n
out of 10 nine very impressive but the
reason didn't seem to be because the
presentation matched their preferred
learning style but because they employed
a memory strategy so like as you were
showing I was like making an order in my
head so I was as I saw more I would just
add it to the list and I was repeating
the list as I was looking at them so I
could just say it out loud did you try a
strategy while you were looking at those
pictures yeah so I guess I I tried like
creating a story cuz it's easier to
remember a story than just individual
objects so I try to like tie it all into
one story this is obviously anecdotal
evidence but rigorous studies like the
one I outlined have been conducted for
example one looked at visualizers versus
verbalizers instead of visual versus
auditory Learners the study was
computer-based so first students
learning styles were assessed using
questions like would you rather read a
paragraph or see a diagram describing an
atom the researchers also provided some
challenging explanations with two
buttons visual help or verbal help the
visual one played a short animation
whereas the verbal help gave a written
explanation from these measures combined
the researchers categorized the students
as either visualizers or verbalizers and
then the students were randomly assigned
to go through a text-based or
picture-based lesson on electronics when
a student hovered their Mouse over
keywords in the lesson in the text based
group a definition and clarification
came up but in the picture group an
annotated diagram was shown instead and
after the lesson the students did a test
to assess their learning the students
whose preferred learning style matched
their in instruction performed no better
on the tests than those whose
instruction was mismatched the
researchers ran the test again with 61
non-college educated adults and found
exactly the same result but learning
styles are a preference so how strongly
do Learners stick to their preference
well in a 2018 study during the first
week of semester over 400 students at a
university in Indiana completed the varc
questionnaire and they were classified
according to their learning style then
at the end of the semester the same same
students completed a study strategy
questionnaire so how did they actually
study during the term well an
overwhelming majority of students used
study strategies which were supposedly
incompatible with their learning style
and the minority of students who did did
not perform significantly differently on
the Assessments in the course the visual
auditory Reading Writing kinesthetic or
varc model came about from Neil Fleming
a school inspector in New Zealand
describing the origins of AR he says I
was puzzled when I observed served
excellent teachers who did not reach
some Learners and poor teachers who did
I decided to try to solve this puzzle
there are of course many reasons for
what I observed but one topic that
seemed to hold some magic some
explanatory power was preferred modes of
learning modal preferences and thus varc
was born there was no study that
revealed students naturally cluster into
four distinct groups just some magic
that might explain why some teachers can
reach students While others can't but
how can this be if we accept that some
people are more skilled at interpreting
and remembering certain kinds of stimuli
than others like visual or auditory then
why don't we see differences in learning
or recall with different presentations
well it's because what we actually want
people to recall is not the precise
nature of the images or the pitch or
quality of the sound it's the meaning
behind the presentations there are some
tasks that obviously require the use of
a particular modality learning about
music for example should have an
auditory component similarly learning
about geography will involve looking at
maps and some people will have greater
aptitude to learn one task over another
someone with perfect pitch for example
will be better able to recall certain
tones in music someone with excellent
visual spatial reasoning will be better
at learning the locations of countries
on a map but the claim of learning style
theories is that these preferences will
be consistent across learning domains
the person with perfect pitch should
learn everything better auditorally but
that is clearly not the case most people
will learn geography better with a
map review articles of learning styles
consistently conclude there is no
credible evidence that learning styles
exist in a 2009 review the researchers
note the contrast between the enormous
popularity of the learning styles
approach within education and the lack
of credible evidence for its utility is
in our opinion striking and disturbing
if classification of students learning
styles has PR itical utility it remains
to be demonstrated what we're expecting
is if your style was honored you're
going to perform better than if you had
some experience that conflicted with
your style and this is where we don't
see any support for the learning styles
Theory one of the reasons many people
find learning styles so convincing is
because they already believe it to be
true for example they might already
think that they're a visual learner and
then when a teacher shows them a diagram
of say a bike pump and L the concept
clicks well they interpret this as
evidence for their visual learning style
you already believe that learning styles
is right when you have an experience the
first thing you think is is that in some
way consistent with learning styles and
if it is you don't think further when in
reality that diagram might just be a
great diagram that would have helped
anyone learn when we already believe the
world to be a certain way then we
interpret new experiences to fit with
those beliefs whether they actually do
or not so if learning styles don't
improve learning then what does well
there's a large body of literature that
supports the claim that everyone learns
better with multimodal approaches where
words and pictures are presented
together rather than either words or
pictures alone now there's going to be
words as well as the picture we're going
to see if this is any better this is
known as the multimedia effect and it
explains in part at least why videos can
be such powerful tools for learning when
the narration complements the visuals
duck
heart in my PhD research I found
explicit discussion of misconceptions
was essential in multimedia teaching for
introductory physics how many is that
six six okay that's good that is a whole
50% better do you think that was easier
that yeah yeah with 100% ultimately the
most important thing for learning is not
the way the information is presented but
what is happening inside the learner's
head people learn best when they're
actively thinking about the material
solving problems or imagining what
happens if different variables change I
talked about how and why we learn best
in my video the science of thinking so
check that out now the truth is there
are many evidence-based teaching methods
that improve learning learning styles is
just not one of them and it is likely
given the prevalence of the learning
Styles's misconception that it actually
makes learning worse I mean learning
styles give teachers unnecessary things
to worry about and they may make some
students reluctant to engage with
certain types of instruction and all the
time and money spent on learning styles
and related training could be better
spent on interventions that actually
improve learning you are not a visual
learner nor an auditory learner nor a
kinesthetic learner or more accurately
you are all these kinds of Learner in
one the best learning experiences are
those that involve multiple different
ways of understanding the same thing and
best of all this strategy works not just
for one subset of people but for
everyone this part of the video was
sponsored by Google Search now there are
lots of topics out there that are
controversial like learning styles for
example most people believe learning
styles are a thing whereas educational
researchers find no robust evidence for
them and if you search for learning
styles you'll get lots of sites with
resources and quizzes but if you search
for learning styles debunked well then
you'll find articles about how there is
very little evidence for the learning
styles hypothesis I think one of the
most common traps people fall into is
only searching for information that
confirms what they already believe a
common mistake is putting the answer
you're looking for right in the search
query a better idea is to try another
search adding debunk or false at the end
and see what comes up and Google makes
it easy to get more detail about the
source of the information just click the
three dots next to any search result and
then you can judge for yourself whether
the information is trustworthy and if
you want to visit the site a Google
search is meant to surface the most
relevant information for your query but
it's up to you to formulate that query
try a few different searches and assess
whether the information is reliable and
the whole point of veritasium is to get
to the truth so I'm excited to encourage
everyone to think more critically about
how we get information I want to thank
Google for sponsoring this part of the
video and I want to thank you for
watching