Learning Preferences Analysis

"The key takeaway point is that matching teaching with students’ learning preferences has very little impact, and many more effective interventions exist...An important message from this article is that a more robust and deeper understanding of various learning strategies—when they work best, how to teach them, how to align different strategies with the depth and complexity of what is being taught—is a more powerful debate to (finally) kill the learning style myths. That is, a focus on how to teach students to self-regulate so they know alternative strategies when their first choices are not effective, how to engage in error management, how to align the optimal learning strategy with the context of the task, and how to articulate and have a language of learning." https://lnkd.in/egY5g4FQ

🧠💥 Learning Styles? Let’s Retire the Myth & Do What Actually Works Ever been labeled a “visual,” “auditory,” or “kinesthetic” learner? The claim shows up in conference keynotes, marketing decks, and everyday ed-tech chatter — yet 20 + years of research finds zero learning boost when lessons are tailored to self-declared styles. ⚠️ Quick myth check • Large systematic reviews — spanning 13 models and thousands of learners—found no classroom benefit for matching instruction to a preferred style. • Follow-up replications & meta-analyses (2015-2025) keep confirming the same: preferences predict how people like to study, not how well they learn. • Belief–practice gap: Despite the evidence, recent surveys show 80-90% of educators still plan to “teach to styles” this year. 🛠️ Instead, let's do what does move the needle • Dual coding 🖼️✍️ – Pair words with visuals to create two memory traces • Retrieval practice 🔄 – Frequent low-stakes quizzes beat re-reading • Spaced repetition ⏳ – Revisit content at widening intervals (1-7-16-35 days) • Interleaving 🔀 – Mix related problem types to sharpen discrimination At Duolingo, we weave these science-backed moves into every lesson: adaptive spacing schedules, retrieval-triggering challenges, and rich multimedia that leverage dual coding—not “styles.” Result? Faster proficiency gains and higher stickiness for 80+ million monthly learners 🚀. Your move: Pick one of the four tactics, drop it into next week’s lesson plan, and tell me what happens ⬇️ #LearningScience #EdTech #InstructionalDesign #Duolingo #MythBusting

Hey peeps 🔥 Before being an L&D professional, I’m a father who is trying to figure out how to give my kid the best shot at learning. That means cutting through the noise. Especially the feel-good myths & misconceptions we keep repeating like facts. My wife encourages our little one to explore her creative side—paints, crafts, helpful animation, toys & books, all of it. While my talentless-self tries to nudge her toward structured thinking and learning direction. We both fail at times & that’s fine. We try again. It’s a process. But there’s one thing I won’t fall for: learning styles. You’ve probably heard it: “I’m a visual learner,” “She’s auditory,” “He’s kinesthetic.” Here’s the reality: A systematic review of 37 studies showed that 89% of educators still believe in learning styles—despite decades of research proving they don’t improve learning outcomes (Pashler et al., 2008; Newton & Salvi, 2020). And yes, people do have preferences. But preference ≠ performance. No solid evidence supports the idea that matching instruction to someone’s preferred “style” helps them learn better. The Frontiers in Education paper (2020) confirms that most learners don’t even benefit when instruction is aligned to their supposed style. The effect is basically non-existent. So why is this still a thing? ▶️Because it feels true. ▶️Because saying “I’m a visual learner” makes us feel seen. ▶️Because we confuse engagement with actual learning. Same goes for attention span myths (“people now have the focus of a goldfish”). Yet, there’s no real science backing that either. We just feel distracted, so it sticks. The problem isn’t just that these ideas are wrong. It’s that they give us false confidence. They stop us from asking better questions. Instead of saying, “My kid is a visual learner,” I’d rather ask: 💠What is she struggling with? 💠What’s the context? 💠What strategies actually work? This is the same shift we need in adult learning too. No more learning style checklists. No more fluffy labels. Just evidence, design, feedback, and iteration. As our job isn’t to validate preferences. It’s rather to build competence. And that starts with letting go of what just “feels” true. References: 📌 Newton & Salvi (2020), Frontiers in Education – Link 📌 Pashler et al. (2008), Psychological Science in the Public Interest – Debunking learning styles #learninganddevelopment #instructionaldesign #learningdesign #learningstyles #learningexperiencedesign #neuromyth