2025

The Enduring Appeal and Scientific Rejection of Learning Styles Theory

Myths in Education: Tracing and Challenging the Learning Styles Narrative
In his 2010 book, 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behaviour, Scott Lilienfeld identifies and analyzes popular psychological myths, including one that has been especially persistent and influential in society: the belief that students learn best when teaching methods are matched to their individual learning styles (Lilienfeld et al., 2010). Walter Barbe and colleagues introduced the VAK framework through their 1981 work “Teaching through modality strengths: Concepts and practices.” This foundational work examined learners’ modality strengths – visual, auditory, kinesthetic – and recommended that instruction be tailored to these modalities to optimize educational outcomes. Fleming and Mills (1992) expanded Barbe’s model by adding a Read/Write modality, described in their article: “Not Another Inventory, Rather a Catalyst for Reflection.” In their review article, “Thirty-Five Years of Research on Perceptual Strengths: Essential Strategies to Promote Learning,” Dunn and Dunn (2005) describe the early developments of their learning styles framework and inventory, explaining how their research from the 1960s onward led to the theory’s design and practical application in education. Accordingly, the thesis of this paper is that learning styles represent an institutionally and commercially entrenched neuromyth that undermines informed pedagogy by drawing attention and resources away from a core set of empirically supported learning strategies.From Theory to Policy: Institutional Endurance of Learning Styles
Many of the most influential frameworks in education, from the original VAK and its extension as VARK, to the LSI, have played a central role in the institutionalization of the learning styles myth. Research consistently demonstrates that the learning styles myth is deeply entrenched among educators, students, and the public, with endorsement rates hovering between 80% and 95% internationally (Nancekivell et al., 2020; Macdonald et al., 2017). All too often, educators, educational institutions, and academic support centers at colleges and universities fixate on designing resources, services, and interventions based on perceived learning styles, even though a substantial body of empirical research denies any scientific basis for this approach (Nancekivell et al., 2020; Macdonald et al., 2017; McCabe, 2018). Beyond its presence in policy and curricula, a wide range of commercial products and assessment tools rooted in learning styles theory continue to be marketed and adopted within educational settings, despite a lack of consideration for their scientific accuracy and empirical support (“Belief in learning styles myth”, 2019). One such tool is the Dunn and Dunn LSI, a diagnostic instrument profiling learners’ environmental, emotional, sociological, physiological, and psychological preferences (Pashler et al., 2008). This substantial cultural entrenchment has created fertile ground for a commercial industry that promotes learning styles as a basis for instruction.
Profiting from Pseudoscience: Commercialization of Learning Styles
Building on the LSI diagnostic tool developed by Dunn and Dunn, researchers, educational companies, and organizations have marketed learning style assessments that claim to help teachers tailor instruction to individual students’ styles (Nancekivell et al., 2020; Macdonald et al., 2017; American Psychological Association, 2019; Sun et al., 2023; Deibl et al., 2024). Multiple articles converge on the conclusion that there is no credible scientific evidence that matching teaching methods to students’ preferred learning styles improves educational outcomes (Nancekivell et al., 2020; Macdonald et al., 2017; Pashler et al., 2008). Although students who receive instruction aligned with their self-identified preferences may report greater satisfaction, substantial evidence indicates that such alignment does not lead to better or higher achievement. In other words, enjoying or preferring a particular way of learning does not, by itself, produce deeper understanding or improved performance when teaching is tailored to that preference. In fact, experts in cognitive psychology and neuroscience widely recognize the learning styles theory as a classic neuromyth a widely believed but scientifically unfounded misconception about how learning occurs. The learning styles myth leads schools to devote substantial time and resources to assessments, tools, and interventions that lack demonstrated effectiveness (Nancekivell et al., 2020), and the American Psychological Association (2019) cautions that parents and educators risk time and financial costs on such products and services. In addition, Macdonald et al. (2017) point out that ongoing investments in commercial assessments and educator training help to reinforce and entrench the myth, maintaining its cultural presence and economic impact within educational systems. Notably, endorsement of the learning styles myth persists even among educators with neuroscience or scientific training, suggesting that institutional norms, rather than scientific understanding, drive this persistent belief (Macdonald et al., 2017). Attempts to debunk the myth are repeatedly met with resistance, sustained by several factors: the intuitive appeal of personalizing instruction, comfort with simple explanations, and a strong desire for rational control. Even additional scientific or neuroscience training reduces but does not eliminate belief. Collectively, these studies illustrate that the learning styles myth is systematically sustained by educational institutions, policy documents, commercial interests, and entrenched cultural narratives, despite decades of research rejecting learning styles theory (Nancekivell et al., 2020; Macdonald et al., 2017). As a result, efforts to debunk the myth and shift educational practice face persistent resistance, both from institutional norms and from the intuitive appeal these frameworks hold for educators and the public alike. Taken together, these commercial, institutional, and cultural forces do more than generate profit; they also entrench learning styles as a common-sense truth, making the myth exceptionally difficult to dislodge even when clear evidence refuting the myth is available.
Enduring Misconception: The Challenge of Refuting Learning Styles
Despite robust evidence debunking the learning styles myth, essentialist beliefs about learning and fixed mindsets about intelligence and ability persist. These beliefs continue to drive both educators and the public to resist abandoning these misconceptions. Sun et al., (2023) highlight that educators and members of the public continue to believe that students possess a particular way of learning and that instruction should be tailored to this presumed style to enhance learning. This belief can be understood as an essentialist view: people construe learning styles as brain-based, enduring characteristics that categorize individuals into distinct types of learning. These labels then feel like satisfying explanations for performance and behaviour and therefore difficult to relinquish. Experiments indicate that when parents, teachers, and children are given otherwise identical descriptions of students that differ only in learning-style wording, they tend to judge “visual learners” as more intelligent and more capable in core academic subjects, while perceiving “hands-on learners” as more athletic and better suited to non-core subjects such as physical education, music, and art (Sun et al., 2023). These patterned inferences can, in turn, direct children toward or away from subjects and educational pathways based on a label that lacks scientific validity, rather than on robust evidence about their actual skills, potential, or instructional needs (“Belief in Learning Styles Myth May Be Detrimental,” 2019). Standard lectures or brief myth-debunking segments in educational psychology courses rarely succeed in eradicating the neuromyth. As a result, endorsement of learning styles tends to endure across successive cohorts of both pre-service and in-service teachers and their students (Deibl et al., 2021). In one study, a video-based intervention on learning-related myths for high school students reduced belief only in the myths that were directly and explicitly addressed, including the learning styles myth, while beliefs in other myths remained unchanged. This pattern implies that conceptual change is highly targeted, cognitively demanding, and does not naturally generalize beyond the specific myths that are explicitly challenged (Deibl et al., 2021). Refutational approaches deliberately confront the incorrect belief head-on: the misconception is first activated and named explicitly, then clearly marked as false, and only afterward is the scientifically supported explanation laid out in a way that is plausible and coherent for learners (Deibl et al., 2024). Because the learner is forced to notice a direct conflict between “what I thought before” and “what the evidence shows,” refutational materials create the cognitive disequilibrium that conceptual-change theories see as necessary for restructuring prior beliefs, which is why they generally outperform neutral or purely expository teaching for reducing misconceptions such as learning styles. At the same time, studies with teachers and students show that these gains are often partial and sometimes short-lived, and they may not automatically translate into changes in practice, underscoring that even well-designed refutational texts or lectures only chip away at myths that are socially reinforced and repeatedly re-encountered (Deibl et al., 2024). Consequently, the challenge is not only to expose the flaws of the learning styles myth, but also to replace it with evidence-based principles that can guide more informed and effective pedagogy.
From Neuromyth to Informed Pedagogy: Lessons Learned
From a cognitive and neural standpoint, learning involves three tightly interconnected stages: encoding, storage, and retrieval. Effective pedagogy aligns instruction with these mechanisms while avoiding unsupported neuromyths such as learning styles. Moving beyond neuromyths toward a small set of empirically supported strategies is essential for truly informed pedagogy because tailoring instruction to supposed learning styles does not improve comprehension or retention in adults or children and can divert resources from more effective methods (Rogowsky et al., 2020). Encoding is the initial learning of information, in which input is transformed into mental representations linked to prior knowledge (McDermott & Roediger, 2018). Storage refers to the maintenance and stabilization of these traces over time through synaptic and systems-level changes; during the retention interval, ongoing consolidation interacts with interference from new and old information to determine which representations remain accessible (McDermott & Roediger, 2018; Guskjolen & Cembrowski, 2023). Retrieval is the process of accessing stored information when needed and is a key process in learning; each act of retrieval is reconstructive, partially reinstating the original pattern while blending it with current beliefs and context (McDermott & Roediger, 2018; Guskjolen & Cembrowski, 2023). Within this framework, research-supported practices such as spaced practice, retrieval practice, interleaving related topics or problem types, and generative activities that require learners to produce explanations or examples emerge as particularly powerful, yet are often underused or underestimated by students and instructors (Rogowsky et al., 2020). Spaced practice primarily supports the storage phase of learning by allowing time for consolidation between sessions and reducing interference, which in turn increases the likelihood that memory traces remain accessible over the long term. Interleaving related topics or problem types promotes more stable storage by repeatedly revisiting material under varied conditions, which strengthens discriminations between concepts instead of reinforcing a single, rigid style-based pathway. By distributing study over time and mixing content, spacing and interleaving leverage the dynamics of consolidation and interference, offering a mechanistic alternative to the idea that stable learning depends on teaching to a fixed modality preference. Retrieval practice targets the retrieval stage directly: each act of effortful recall strengthens the pathways needed to access information later and provides diagnostic feedback about what has and has not been learned, rather than depending on alignment with a learning style label. Within this framework, retrieval practice improves learning not by matching content to a preferred channel, but by repeatedly exercising the retrieval processes that make knowledge usable in new contexts. Taken together, these findings underscore a sharp contrast between what is known about how learning occurs and the widespread, but unsupported, belief that achievement depends on matching learning to preferred styles.
Beyond Learning Styles: Toward Evidence-Based Education
Despite decades of research debunking the learning styles myth, the belief that student achievement depends on matching methods to preferred styles remains deeply entrenched in education worldwide (Lilienfeld et al., 2010). Foundational frameworks like VAK, VARK, and the LSI have shaped teacher training, curricula, and commercial assessment tools for decades, diverting valuable resources away from evidence-based strategies. The myth has been institutionalized and commercialized, endorsed by educators and perpetuated by policy, curricula, and marketing, even though robust studies consistently show that learning preferences do not translate into improved outcomes when instruction is matched to style (Nancekivell et al., 2020; Macdonald et al., 2017). Cognitive and neuroscience perspectives classify learning styles as a neuromyth and warn that labelling students in this way can narrow opportunities for broad, flexible learning. Ultimately, refutational approaches and sustained professional development are needed to replace outdated practices and ensure pedagogy remains grounded in scientific evidence and demonstrated effectiveness.

References

American Psychological Association. (2019, May 29). Belief in learning styles myth may be detrimental. https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2019/05/learning-styles-myth

Barbe, W. B., & Milone, M. N. (1981). Teaching through modality strengths: Concepts and practices. Academic Therapy, 17(2), 13–20.

Deibl, I., & Zumbach, J. (2024). Overcoming the myths: Interactive learning environments as myth busters—The case of neuromyths. Teaching and Teacher Education, 140, 104607. https://doi.org/10.1177/14757257241261351

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Macdonald, K., Germine, L., Anderson, A., Christodoulou, J., & McGrath, L. M. (2017). Dispelling the myth: Training in education or neuroscience decreases but does not eliminate beliefs in neuromyths. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1314. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01314

McCabe, J. A. (2018). What learning strategies do academic support centers recommend to undergraduates? Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 7(3), 343–359. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2017.10.002

McDermott, K. B., & Roediger, H. L., III. (2018). Memory (encoding, storage, retrieval). In R. Biswas-Diener & E. Diener (Eds.), Noba textbook series: Psychology. DEF Publishers. https://nobaproject.com/modules/memory-encoding-storage-retrieval

Nancekivell, S. E., Shah, P., & Gelman, S. A. (2020). Toward a deeper understanding of the learning style myth. Journal of Educational Psychology, 112(2), 221–235. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000366

Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2009). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(3), 105–119. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01038.x

Rogowsky, B. A., Calhoun, B. M., & Tallal, P. (2020). Providing instruction based on students’ learning style preferences does not improve learning. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, Article 164. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00164

Sun, X., Norton, O., & Nancekivell, S. E. (2023). Beware the myth: Learning styles affect parents’, children’s, and teachers’ thinking about children’s academic potential. NPJ Science of Learning, 8, Article 46. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-023-00190-x