Learning Modalities

There has been work on learning styles over the last two decades. Dunn and Dunn focused on identifying relevant stimuli that may influence learning and manipulating the school environment, at about the same time as Joseph Renzulli recommended varying teaching strategies. Howard Gardner identified individual talents or aptitudes in his Multiple Intelligences theories. Based on the works of Jung, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Keirsey Temperament Sorter focused on understanding how people's personality affects the way they interact personally, and how this affects the way individuals respond to each other within the learning environment. The work of David Kolb and Anthony Gregorc's Type Delineator follows a similar but more simplified approach.
School girls in AfganistanIt is currently fashionable to divide education into different learning "modes". The learning modalities are probably the most common:
Visual: learning based on observation and seeing what is being learned.
Auditory: learning based on listening to instructions/information.
Kinesthetic: learning based on hands-on work and engaging in activities.

Although it is claimed that, depending on their preferred learning modality, different teaching techniques have different levels of effectiveness, recent research has argued "there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning styles assessments into general educational practice."
A consequence of this theory is that effective teaching should present a variety of teaching methods which cover all three learning modalities so that different students have equal opportunities to learn in a way that is effective for them. Guy Claxton has questioned the extent that learning styles such as VAK are helpful, particularly as they can have a tendency to label children and therefore restrict learning.

When learners encode sequential patterns and generalize their knowledge to novel instances, are they relying on abstract or stimulus-specific representations? Research on artificial grammar learning (AGL) has shown transfer of learning from one stimulus set to another, and such findings have encouraged the view that statistical learning is mediated by abstract representations that are independent of the sense modality or perceptual features of the stimuli. Using a novel modification of the standard AGL paradigm, we obtained data to the contrary. These experiments pitted abstract processing against stimulus-specific learning. The findings show that statistical learning results in knowledge that is stimulus-specific rather than abstract. They show furthermore that learning can proceed in parallel for multiple input streams along separate perceptual dimensions or sense modalities. We conclude that learning sequential structure and generalizing to novel stimuli inherently involve learning mechanisms that are closely tied to the perceptual characteristics of the input.
A brief narrative description of the journal article, document, or resource. A selection of essays in learning styles in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) instruction includes: "Cultural Differences in Learning Styles" (Gayle L. Nelson); "Difficulties with Cross-Cultural Learning-Styles Assessment" (Patricia A. Eliason); "Gender Differences in Language Learning Styles: What Do They Mean?" (Rebecca L. Oxford); "Cognitive and Learning Styles of High School Students: Implications for ESL Curriculum Development" (Emma Violand-Sanchez); "Drawing Out Communication: Student-Created Visuals as a Means for Promoting Language Development in Adult ESL Classrooms" (Sharron Bassano, Mary Ann Christison); "Meeting Language Learners' Sensory-Learning-Style Preferences" (Nancy Kroonenberg); "Tolerance of Ambiguity and the Teaching of ESL" (Christopher M. Ely);"Expanding Student Learning Styles through Poetry" (Christison, Bassano); "Culture-Specific Perceptual-Learning-Style Preferences of Postsecondary Students of English as a Second Language" (Christine Stebbins); "Learning Styles and Strategies in Adult Immigrant ESL Students" (Laura Rossi-Le); "Learning Styles and Elementary School ESL" (Sabrina Peck); "Learning Styles and ITA Training" (Kristina Torkleson); "ESL Composition and Learning Styles" (Patricia L. Carrell, Laura B. Monroe); "Field-Dependence/Field-Independence in the L2 Classroom" (Carol A. Chapelle); and "Understanding and Empowering Diverse Learners in the ESL Classroom" (Kate Kinsella). Substantial forms, questionnaires, and related materials are appended.

A number of studies conducted during the last decade have found that students' achievement increases when teaching methods match their learning styles--biological and developmental characteristics that affect how they learn. Correlational studies and experimental research studies are reviewed on instructional environments, perceptual preferences, and sociological preferences, as well as time-of-day preferences and mobility needs. (Author/TE)
Abstractor:Source of the abstract: ERIC or Author; prior to 2005, abstractor initials appeared at the end of the abstract.

One of the most serious challenges that dental educators face today is improving the level of student satisfaction with the curriculum and learning environment. To determine whether a particular teaching method might enhance student satisfaction with the learning process, a learning preference survey linked to sensory modalities was given to students in the four classes of the Temple University School of Dentistry. New Zealand educator Neil Fleming developed the survey called VARK (an acronym for Visual, Aural, Read/Write, and Kinesthetic) in 1998. The purpose of this study was to measure the distribution of learning preference mean scores of the dental students and note any significant differences among classes, gender, and a sample population determined using 31,243 participants on the VARK website. Results clearly demonstrate that the dominant preference distributions for the two populations (dental student and sample population) are different. In particular, the proportions of learners who selected visual or kinesthetic are significantly different for the two populations, while the proportions of learners who selected aural or read/write are not significantly different. Dental students prefer visual learning at a higher percentage and kinesthetic learning at a lower percentage than the sample population measured in the VARK website. Inter-class differences varied, and gender differences were not significant. The distribution of dental student scores shows a preference for instructors who use strong visual presentations and facilitate note-taking during lectures. Dental educators should be aware of these differences in order to explore opportunities for making the educational experience more productive and enjoyable.

The characteristics of contemporary societies are increasingly theorized as global, fluid, and networked. These conditions underpin the emerging knowledge economy as it is shaped by the societal and technological forces of late capitalism. These shifts and developments have significantly affected the communicational landscape of the 21st century. A key aspect of this is the reconfiguration of the representational and communicational resources of image, action, sound, and so on in new multimodal ensembles. The terrain of communication is changing in profound ways and extends to schools and ubiquitous elements of everyday life, even if these changes are occurring to different degrees and at uneven rates. It is against this backdrop that this critical review explores school multimodality and literacy and asks what these changes mean for being literate in this new landscape of the 21st century. The two key arguments in this article are that it is not possible to think about literacy solely as a linguistic accomplishment and that the time for the habitual conjunction of language, print literacy, and learning is over. This review, organized in three parts, does not provide an exhaustive overview of multimodal literacies in and beyond classrooms. Instead, it sets out to highlight key definitions in an expanded approach to new literacies, then to link these to emergent studies of schooling and classroom practice. The first part outlines the new conditions for literacy and the ways in which this is conceptualized in the current research literature. In particular, it introduces three perspectives: New Literacies Studies, multiliteracies, and multimodality. Contemporary conceptualizations of literacy in the school classroom are explored in the second part of the chapter. This discussion is organized around themes that are central to multimodality and multiliteracies. These include multimodal perspectives on pedagogy, design, decisions about connecting with the literacy worldsof students, and the ways in which representations shape curriculum knowledge and learning. Each of these themes is discussed in turn, drawing on a range of examples of multimodal research. The third and final part of the article discusses future directions for multiple literacies, curriculum policy, and schooling.

A brief narrative description of the journal article, document, or resource. 4MAT is an eight-step instructional cycle that capitalizes on individual learning styles and brain dominance processing preferences. The four major learners (imaginative, analytic, common sense, and dynamic) can use 4MAT to engage their whole brain. Learners use their most comfortable style while being challenged to function in less comfortable modes. Includes 13 references.
Students have individual learning style preferences including visual (V; learning from graphs, charts, and flow diagrams), auditory (A; learning from speech), read-write (R; learning from reading and writing), and kinesthetic (K; learning from touch, hearing, smell, taste, and sight). These preferences can be assessed using the VARK questionnaire. We administered the VARK questionnaire to undergraduate physiology majors enrolled in a capstone physiology laboratory at Michigan State University; 48 of the 86 students (55.8%) who returned the completed questionnaire voluntarily offered gender information. The responses were tallied and assessed for gender difference in learning style preference; 54.2% of females and only 12.5% of males preferred a single mode of information presentation. Among the female students, 4.2% of the students preferred V, 0% of the students preferred A, 16.7% of the students preferred printed words (R), and 33.3% of the students preferred using all their senses (K). In contrast, male students were evenly distributed in preference, with 4.2% of the students preferring A, R, or K, respectively, while 0% of the students preferred V. Furthermore, 45.8% of female and 87.5% of male respondents preferred multiple modes [female: 2 modes (12.5%), 3 modes (12.5%), and 4 modes (20.8%); males: 2 modes (16.7%), 3 modes (12.5%), and 4 modes (58.3%)] of presentation. In summary, a majority of male students preferred multimodal instruction, specifically, four modes (VARK), whereas a majority of female students preferred single-mode instruction with a preference toward K. Thus, male and female students have significantly different learning styles. It is the responsibility of the instructor to address this diversity of learning styles and develop appropriate learning approaches.