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The Biggest Myth In Education — Transcript

by Veritasium · 2,663 words · 375 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00- This video is about learning styles.
0:01What kind of learner are you?
0:03- Oh yeah, I'm a visual person
0:05so I have to see things, yeah. - Oh yeah, same.
0:05- I think visual learner.
0:07- Visual.
0:08- I mean, like, I remember formulas like auditory.
0:11- I need to be like, interacting with the material.
0:13- I like to learn by doing it myself.
0:15- Very hands-on.
0:15- Hands-on learner.
0:16- Hands-on?
0:17- So like, if I have a model, I'd like to look at that
0:19and look it over.
0:20- Part of this video was sponsored by Google Search.
0:25There is this idea in education that everyone
0:27has their own preferred way of learning,
0:29their so-called learning style.
0:31If information is presented in accordance
0:32with the learning style, well, then they'll learn better.
0:36Now, there are dozens of different learning style theories,
0:38but the most common one identifies
0:40four main learning styles, visual, auditory,
0:43reading-writing, and kinesthetic or VARK for short.
0:47Visual learners learn best from images,
0:49demonstrations, and pictures.
0:51- People may say things, but I can't really take it in.
0:54I just gotta see 'em act it out or write it or something.
0:57- [Derek] Auditory learners learn best
0:59from listening to an explanation.
1:01- Like in school, I was always engaged in the lecture
1:04and that was usually good enough to pass a test.
1:07- [Derek] Reading-writing learners learn best
1:08from reading and writing.
1:10- Like I can get pretty much anything
1:11out of reading a textbook or something.
1:13- [Derek] And kinesthetic learners learn best by doing.
1:16Physically interacting with the world.
1:17- Hands-on.
1:18You have to touch things, you have to play with things,
1:20you know, it's a contact sport.
1:23You have to do it yourself.
1:24- I want to try something with you, a little experiment.
1:27I want to show you 10 pictures of things
1:29and I don't want you to say anything
1:30while you're looking at them, and at the end of the 10
1:32you tell me how many you can remember.
1:34- Okay.
1:35- Okay? - Okay.
1:36- Okay.
1:38- Now, learning styles make intuitive sense
1:40because we know everyone is different.
1:43Some people have better spacial reasoning.
1:45Others have better listening comprehension.
1:48We know some people are better readers
1:50while others are good with their hands.
1:52- It's sort of very much fits with a broad strain
1:56of thought in the recent Western tradition is,
2:00we're all unique, we're all different.
2:01And so you don't want to say, like,
2:02everybody learns the same way.
2:04That sort of conflicts with our feelings
2:07about what it means to be human.
2:09- So doesn't it make sense that people should learn better
2:12in their own preferred learning style?
2:14Well, teachers certainly seem to think so.
2:16A survey of nearly 400 teachers from the UK
2:19and the Netherlands found that over 90% believed
2:22that individuals learn better when they receive information
2:25in their preferred learning style.
2:27- [Instructor] Just like every professor
2:28has a different style of teaching,
2:30you have a different style of learning.
2:31- [Instructor] But when his teacher starts using visuals,
2:34Johnathan finds it easier to focus
2:35and understand the material
2:36so he might be a visual learner.
2:39- [Derek] Can you tell me what that means to you?
2:41Like, what does it mean to be a visual learner?
2:43- To me it means that for me to learn something
2:45sometimes you need to draw it or I need to write it down
2:48or I need to see a picture or a movie.
2:51- For example, science classes, I get bored easily
2:54just listening and I think it's more interesting for me
2:57to actually be able to do it.
2:59- [Derek] How do you know that you're a visual learner?
3:00- I don't, I just assumed.
3:03- To take advantage of learning styles
3:05then teachers need to do two things.
3:07First, identify the learning style
3:09of each of their students.
3:11And second, teach each student
3:13in accordance with their learning style.
3:15On the VARK website it says, once you know about VARK,
3:19its power to explain things will be a revelation.
3:22But before you take an online learning styles quiz,
3:25it's a good idea to ask, do learning styles even exist?
3:29I mean, do you have one?
3:30And if you're taught in accordance with it,
3:32would you learn better? (warm instrumental music)
3:35Well, you could test this
3:36by running a randomized control trial
3:38where first you would identify learners
3:40with at least two different learning styles,
3:42say visual and auditory and then randomly assign learners
3:46to one of two educational presentations,
3:48one visual, one auditory.
3:50So for half of the students
3:52the experience will match their learning style
3:54and for the other half it won't.
3:57And then you give everyone the same test.
3:59If the learning style hypothesis is correct,
4:02the results should show better performance
4:04when the presentation matches the learning style
4:07than when they're mismatched.
4:09I tried a very unscientific version
4:12of this experiment on the street.
4:14For some people, I matched their learning style
4:16so I showed visual learners pictures of 10 items,
4:21but for other visual learners I read out the items instead.
4:25Bell, penguin, sun.
4:29- Okay, I'm maxed out.
4:30- [Derek] How many can you remember?
4:32- I don't know.
4:32- Hair, knife, duck, heart, butterfly.
4:38- Apple, bicycle, guitar.
4:42- There was a spider.
4:44Did I say eye already?
4:45- Trumpet, pear. - Pear.
4:47- Butterfly. - Duck.
4:48- Knife. - Boat.
4:49- Heart. - Knife.
4:50- Heart.
4:51- I couldn't tell you the rest, that's all I got.
4:53- [Derek] Most people could remember
4:54only about five or six things.
4:56- Yeah, yeah. - Six, six is not bad.
4:58- All right.
4:59- Six. - Six out of 10
5:00which is not bad, right? - Oh, all right, yeah.
5:02- That's a passing score.
5:03Candle. - Oh.
5:04- Candle. - Everyone forgets the candle.
5:05But a few could remember substantially more,
5:08say, eight or nine items.
5:10- Bug, I don't know if I said bug.
5:12Guitar, bike, eye, bell, spoon, sun, chair.
5:17I'm forgetting the last two.
5:18- That's pretty good. - Eight is really good.
5:20- Oh, cool.
5:21- Nine? - Nine out of 10.
5:22- Nine, very impressive.
5:24But the reason didn't seem to be because the presentation
5:27matched their preferred learning style
5:29but because they employed a memory strategy.
5:33- So as you were showing I was making an order in my head.
5:36So as I saw more I would just add it to the list
5:39and I was repeating the list as I was looking at them
5:41so I could just say it out loud.
5:42- Did you try a strategy while you were looking
5:44at those pictures? - Yeah, yeah.
5:46So I guess I tried creating a story
5:49'cause it's easier to remember a story
5:50than just individual objects.
5:52So I tried to tie it all into one story.
5:55- This is all obviously anecdotal evidence,
5:57but rigorous studies like the one I outlined
5:59have been conducted.
6:01For example, one looked at visualizers versus verbalizers
6:04instead of visual versus auditory learners.
6:06The study was computer-based,
6:09so first students' learning styles were assessed
6:11using questions like, would you rather read a paragraph
6:15or see a diagram describing an atom?
6:17The researchers also provided some challenging explanations
6:20with two buttons, visual help or verbal help.
6:24The visual one played a short animation
6:26whereas the verbal help gave a written explanation.
6:29From these measures combined, the researchers categorized
6:32the students as either visualizers or verbalizers
6:35and then the students were randomly assigned
6:37to go through a text-based
6:39or picture-based lesson on electronics.
6:42When a student hovered their mouse over key words
6:44in the lesson in the text-based group,
6:46a definition and clarification came up.
6:48But in the picture group,
6:50an annotated diagram was shown instead.
6:52And after the lesson, the students did a test
6:55to assess their learning.
6:56The students whose preferred learning style
6:58matched their instruction performed no better on the tests
7:02than those whose instruction was mismatched.
7:05The researchers ran the test again
7:06with 61 non-college-educated adults
7:09and found exactly the same result.
7:11But learning styles are a preference
7:13so how strongly do learners stick to their preference?
7:17Well, in a 2018 study during the first week of semester,
7:20over 400 students at a university in Indiana
7:23completed the VARK questionnaire and they were classified
7:26according to their learning style.
7:28Then at the end of the semester
7:29the same students completed a study strategy questionnaire.
7:32So how did they actually study during the term?
7:35Well, an overwhelming majority of students
7:37used study strategies which were supposedly incompatible
7:40with their learning style,
7:42and the minority of students who did
7:44did not perform significantly differently
7:46on the assessments in the course.
7:48The visual auditory reading-writing, kinesthetic
7:51or VARK model came about from Neil Fleming,
7:53a school inspector in New Zealand.
7:56Describing the origins of VARK he says,
7:58I was puzzled when I observed excellent teachers
8:00who did not reach some learners and poor teachers who did.
8:04I decided to try to solve this puzzle.
8:06There are, of course, many reasons for what I observed.
8:09But one topic that seemed to hold some magic,
8:12some explanatory power,
8:14was preferred modes of learning, modal preferences.
8:17And thus, VARK was born.
8:20There was no study that revealed
8:22students naturally cluster into four distinct groups.
8:24Just some magic that might explain
8:26why some teachers can reach students while others can't.
8:29But how can this be?
8:31If we accept that some people are more skilled
8:33at interpreting and remembering certain kinds of stimuli
8:35than others like visual or auditory,
8:38then why don't we see differences in learning
8:41or recall with different presentations?
8:43Well, it's because what we actually want people to recall
8:46is not the precise nature of the images
8:48or the pitch or quality of the sound.
8:51It's the meaning behind the presentations.
8:53There are some tasks that obviously require the use
8:55of a particular modality.
8:57Learning about music, for example,
8:59should have an auditory component.
9:01Similarly, learning about geography
9:02will involve looking at maps.
9:05And some people will have greater aptitude
9:07to learn one task over another.
9:09Someone with perfect pitch, for example,
9:11will be better able to recall certain tones in music.
9:13Someone with excellent visual-spatial reasoning
9:15will be better at learning the locations
9:17of countries on a map.
9:18But the claim of learning style theories
9:20is that these preferences
9:21will be consistent across learning domains.
9:24The person with perfect pitch
9:26should learn everything better auditorily
9:29but that is clearly not the case.
9:31Most people will learn geography better with a map.
9:35Review articles of learning styles consistently conclude
9:38there is no credible evidence that learning styles exist.
9:43In a 2009 review, the researchers note, the contrast
9:46between the enormous popularity
9:48of the learning styles approach within education
9:50and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is,
9:54in our opinion, striking and disturbing.
9:57If classification of students' learning styles
9:59has practical utility, it remains to be demonstrated.
10:02- What we're expecting is, if your style was honored
10:06you're going to perform better than if
10:08you had some experience that conflicted with your style.
10:10And this is where we don't see any support
10:13for the learning styles theory.
10:15- One of the reasons many people find learning styles
10:17so convincing is because they already believe it to be true.
10:21For example, they might already think
10:23that they're a visual learner, and then when a teacher
10:26shows them a diagram of, say, a bike pump
10:29and suddenly the concept clicks,
10:30well, they interpret this as evidence
10:32for their visual learning style.
10:34- You already believe that learning styles is right.
10:36When you have an experience the first think you think is,
10:39is that in some way consistent with learning styles?
10:42And if it is, you don't think further.
10:43- When in reality that diagram might just be a great diagram
10:47that would have helped anyone learn.
10:49When we already believe the world to be a certain way,
10:52then we interpret new experiences to fit with those beliefs
10:55whether they actually do or not.
10:57So if learning styles
10:59don't improve learning, then what does?
11:02Well, there's a large body of literature
11:03that supports the claim that everyone learns better
11:05with multimodal approaches
11:07where words and pictures are presented together
11:09rather than either words or pictures alone.
11:12Now there's gonna be words as well as the picture.
11:15We're gonna see if this is any better.
11:17This is known as the multimedia effect,
11:19and it explains in part, at least,
11:21why videos can be such powerful tools for learning
11:24when the narration complements the visuals.
11:26Duck. - Duck.
11:30- Heart. - Heart.
11:31- [Derek] In my PhD research, I found explicit discussion
11:34of misconceptions was essential
11:36in multimedia teaching for introductory physics.
11:38- How many is that? - Six.
11:40- Six, okay, that's good.
11:41- That is a whole 50% better.
11:43Do you think that was easier?
11:44- Yeah, yeah, 100%, 100%. - Yeah, with the words, yeah.
11:47- Ultimately, the most important thing for learning
11:50is not the way the information is presented
11:52but what is happening inside the learner's head.
11:55People learn best when they're actively thinking
11:58about the material, solving problems
12:00or imagining what happens if different variables change.
12:04I talked about how and why we learn best
12:06in my video, "The Science of Thinking" so check that out.
12:09Now, the truth is, there are many evidence-based
12:11teaching methods that improve learning.
12:14Learning styles is just not one of them.
12:17And it is likely, given the prevalence
12:20of the learning styles misconception
12:21that it actually makes learning worse.
12:24I mean, learning styles give teachers unnecessary things
12:27to worry about, and they make some students reluctant
12:29to engage with certain types of instruction.
12:32And all the time and money spent on learning styles
12:35and related training could be better spent on interventions
12:37that actually improve learning.
12:40You are not a visual learner nor an auditory learner
12:44nor a kinesthetic learner, or more accurately,
12:47you are all these kinds of learner in one.
12:50The best learning experiences are those
12:52that involve multiple different ways
12:54of understanding the same thing.
12:56And best of all, this strategy works
12:58not just for one subset of people but for everyone.
13:03(radio tuner chirping)
13:07This part of the video was sponsored by Google Search.
13:10Now, there are lots of topics out there
13:11that are controversial like learning styles, for example.
13:14Most people believe learning styles are a thing
13:17whereas educational researchers
13:19find no robust evidence for them.
13:21And if you search for learning styles,
13:23you'll get lots of sites with resources and quizzes.
13:26But if you search for learning styles debunked,
13:29well, then you'll find articles
13:30about how there is very little evidence
13:32for the learning styles hypothesis.
13:34I think one of the most common traps people fall into
13:37is only searching for information
13:39that confirms what they already believe.
13:41A common mistake is putting the answer you're looking for
13:44right in the search query.
13:46A better idea is to try another search,
13:48adding debunked or false at the end and see what comes up.
13:51And Google makes it easy to get more detail
13:53about the source of the information.
13:55Just click the three dots next to any search result
13:58and then you can judge for yourself
13:59whether the information is trustworthy
14:01and if you want to visit the site.
14:02A Google Search is meant to surface
14:04the most relevant information for your query.
14:07But it's up to you to formulate that query,
14:10try a few different searches,
14:11and assess whether the information is reliable.
14:14And the whole point of Veritasium is to get to the truth.
14:17So I'm excited to encourage everyone
14:18to think more critically about how we get information.
14:22I want to thank Google for sponsoring this part of the video
14:24and I want to thank you for watching.

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