Middletown City Schools Superintendent Greg Rasmussen said he always considered himself a visual learner, and isn’t quite ready to fully embrace the study’s findings.
“Common sense tells me I learn differently than other people do,” Rasmussen said. “My sister, who is an attorney, can read something once and she has it down. I have to read it two or three times, then I get it.
“The article has caused me to pause and say, ‘Oh, that’s interesting,’” he said.
A.J. Huff, public relations coordinator at Madison Local Schools, agreed that the article counters contemporary educational thought.
“Just yesterday I was at the southwest Ohio S.T.E.M. (science, technology, engineering and math) seminar, led by the University of Cincinnati,” she said. “One of the things that was said is that (learning styles) are something we need to be catering to.”
The Times article cited a study published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest where researchers from the psychology department at the University of California found “almost zero” evidence to support the concept of learning styles.
Instead of catering toward learning styles, the study suggested “limited education resources would better be devoted to adopting other educational practices that have a strong evidence base.”
The researchers said conducting studies on learning styles is often difficult to execute effectively, and that more research is needed to support the theory.
“I definitely believe there are learning styles and teaching styles,” said Russ Fussnecker, Edgewood Middle School principal. “(This study) is kind of out there.”
But Rasmussen said if the data swells, Middletown City Schools will begin to adhere to the new research.
“If that body of evidence grows through other research and other studies, that’s not always something you can ignore,” he said.
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