1. Learning styles(“VARK” Learning Styles: “Visual“ learners)
Learning Styles refer to the idea that students learn best when course content is pitched to match students’ self-reported media preferences. The most popular one among them divides students into three types: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners.(VARK Model scrutinized..The Atlantic )
Overwhelming consensus among scholars is that no scientific evidence backs this “matching” hypothesis of learning styles (Kirschner 2017, Pashler 2008, Simmonds 2014).(Yale POORVU Center)
According to Dr. Robert Bjork (UCLA) there is no evidence for learning style and in this short video he explains how the idea of individual learning styles not only lacks scientific merit, but how such a belief can be detrimental to learning.
Note: Meta-analysis questioned Carol Dweck’s idea of fixed or growth mindset
Further, teachers are routinely told that in order to be effective educators, they must identify & cater to individual students’ learning styles; it is also estimated that around 90% of students believe that they have a specific learning style but research suggests that learning styles don’t actually exist!
In the following TED Video, Dr. Tesia Marshik (Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse) debunks this learning myth via Research findings, Explaining how/why the belief in learning styles is problematic, and examining the reasons why the belief persists despite the lack of evidence.
Note :The theory of multiple intelligences by Harvard Professor Howard Gardner was often misused to promote Learning Styles. Click this video LINK
2. Left-Right Brain
The left-brain right-brain myth comes from the idea that your dominant personality traits are related to which side of your brain has more control. Supposedly, left-brained people are more logical, while right-brained people are more creative.(Link Northropgrumman.com )
This popular idea has been around for many years but it simply isn’t true because every human-beings use both sides of the brain equally, and logic and creativity are not mutually exclusive.
Everything in the brain is interconnected.
One highly publicized paper “An Evaluation of the Left-Brain vs. Right-Brain Hypothesis” failed to find evidence that individuals tend to have stronger left- or right-sided brain networks.
Following are three popular media reports about the study.
- NPR: “The Truth About The Left Brain / Right Brain Relationship ” 06 Dec, 2013
- CBS News: “Left-brain, right-brain theory a myth, study says” 28 Dec, 2013
- BBC News: “What does a scientist think of “right brain/left brain” tests? – BBC News“
Free Research Article : The Dual-Brain Myth Michael C. Corballis
Watch this Ted Ed video Lesson by Elizabeth Waters, directed by Daniel Gray.
Watch this video: Following a two-year study, University of Utah Health Care researcher Jeff Anderson discusses theories of left brain-right brain dominance, his findings, and what implications they have for the common assertion that people are either “left-brained” or “right-brained.”
3. 10% of Your Brain Myth
This is another major myth circulating among the popular culture and worryingly, even among education research community. According to Barry Gordon of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine the “10 percent myth” is so wrong it is almost laughable.(Link)
The 10% myth may have been started with a misquote of Albert Einstein or the misinterpretation of the work of Pierre Flourens or from William James who wrote “We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources” (from The Energies of Men, p. 12). The origin and perpetuation could also be attributed to misuse by Self Help industry.
Although it’s true that at any given moment all of the brain’s regions are not concurrently firing, brain researchers using imaging technology have shown that, like the body’s muscles, most are continually active over a 24-hour period. “Evidence would show over a day you use 100 percent of the brain,” says John Henley, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester (Link Scientific American )
In the following video SciShow host Hank Green debunks the myth that we only use 10 percent of your brain.
In this video Emory University neurologist Krish Sathian debunks the lingering yet popular myth that people use only 10 percent of their brains. This video also explores scenes from movie Lucy (2014) which promotes the 10% of the brain myth.
Following are some links for further exploration.
- Ten Percent and Counting – BrainConnection.com
- The Ten-Percent Myth from the Skeptical Inquirer
- Do People Use 10 Percent of Their Brains? – Scientific American
- Humans use 100 percent of their brains–despite the popular myth – Ask a Scientist
4. The learning pyramid myth
We all may have heard of the pyramid theory. The most popular among them goes like this:
We learn,
- 10 percent of what they READ
- 20 percent of what they HEAR
- 30 percent of what they SEE
- 50 percent of what they SEE and HEAR
- 70 percent of what they SAY and WRITE
- 90 percent of what they DO
The learning pyramid or the cone of experience is a learning model and representation relating different degrees of retention induced from various type of learning. The representation generally shows percentages and discrete layers within a “pyramid of learning”
The cone is not scientific because of many reasons( Blog @ Trainerswarehouse) . The most prominent among them are probably historical.
In 1946, Edgar Dale proposed a hierarchy of learning methods for adults. In this version, we can see teaching methods in a pyramid, without any numbers.
In the later versions somebody added those percentages . The model could never be substantiated by research findings. Critics also reported inconsistencies between the pyramid of learning and actual state of the art in retention researches.
Further, It is attributed to “the National Training Laboratories”, who claims that it originated from them, but cannot supply the original research upon which it was based: “we no longer have – nor can we find – the original research that supports the numbers.” (cf Letrud, p3). In an era where we are increasingly trying to distinguish myth from fact (and do so by looking at the data and research that inform our opinions) this is a serious admission and one we cannot simply ignore. To make matters worse, the NTL acknowledges that there are different “versions” of the Learning Pyramid out there and that the values attributed to the different modalities differ between the versions, so again, this hardly leads to more confidence in the model itself – quite the opposite.(Source of the above paragraph:Dr Lieb Liebenberg )
So from a research perspective alone, it should be clear that we cannot accept the Learning Pyramid as a reliable model for evaluating different teaching and learning activities.
Thinkers also suggest that learning is not linear as presented in the pyramid model, and for example, adding “hear and see” over “read” cannot be relied upon.(as it add to learning by another 10 or 20% of learning. That is BS)
In this video(timed 14.36 to…) Pedro de Bruyckere talks about the learning pyramid misconceptions . Also check Pedro de Bruyckere’s Blog “TheEconomyOfMeaning”
Here is a tweet by Pedro linking to his blog-post further explaining why Learning Pyramid is wrong.
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=751305320379523072&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fkiranjohnypallipurathu.wordpress.com%2F2022%2F10%2F01%2Fmeta-compilation-of-learning-and-education-myths%2F&sessionId=f2ba3ef01b26ad4beefc057e33ee583c949707e2&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=550px
Further reading: