Revising Teacher Candidates' Beliefs in the Learning Styles Neuromyth

• In Event: Grappling With Socioscientific Topics During Knowledge Revision and Belief Change in Varied Social Contexts

Abstract

This study investigated instructional supports intended to revise teacher candidates’ misconceptions about the learning styles neuromyth. Many teacher candidates believe that students are auditory, visual, or kinesthetic learners. However, this theory is not supported by empirical research (e.g., Newton & Salvi, 2020; Willingham 2015), and matching students to a perceived learning style has been shown to hinder the learning process (i.e., less learning when matching occurs). Therefore, we investigated whether various instructional scaffolds help shift future teachers’ beliefs.

During an introductory education course, teacher candidates (N=240) read a text that provided evidence that the learning styles myth is not true. The text either did or did not follow a refutation format. Refutation texts state misconceptions, cue readers that the information is incorrect, and provide scientific explanations as to why the misconceptions are false (Kendeou et al., 2017). Before reading, participants were prompted to read to (a) reconsider their beliefs or (b) summarize the text. During reading, participants were asked to (a) summarize the text, (b) respond to relational reasoning prompts (i.e., consider how information is similar, dissimilar, or completely distinct from what they thought they already knew), or (c) no support was given. Both summarization (Gil et al., 2010) and relational reasoning (Hattan & Alexander, 2021) have strong research evidence.

Teacher candidates were randomly assigned to text type, purpose, and during reading support. They responded to a beliefs about learning styles assessment before reading (pretest), immediately after reading (posttest), and again several weeks after reading (delayed posttest). The beliefs measure included seven items on a six-point Likert scale (e.g., “It is important for teachers to match kinesthetic learners to kinesthetic content”). Additionally, participants read a scenario about an instructional goal and were prompted to select either a learning styles or multi-modal approach to support K-12 students in meeting the instructional goal.

Across all conditions, there was a significant decrease in beliefs about learning styles from pretest to posttest and from pretest to delayed posttest. Similarly, endorsement of the learning styles approach to the scenario significantly decreased from pretest to posttest and from pretest to delayed posttest. A 2(purpose)X3(reading activity)X2(text type) ANCOVA, controlling for beliefs at pretest, showed main effects of reading activity and text type on beliefs about learning styles at posttest. Teacher candidates benefited more from summarizing than no support and more from the refutation text format. There was no effect of reading purpose, and no significant differences by condition at delayed posttest. There were no significant differences by condition on the scenario assessment at posttest or delayed posttest. See Table 1 for descriptive statistics by condition.

These results demonstrate that it is possible to shift teacher candidates’ beliefs about the learning styles neuromyth, extending research on knowledge revision from scientific (e.g., Newton’s law) to socio-scientific topics. Additionally, the inclusion of the scenario-based assessment supports the possibility that shifting teacher candidates’ beliefs about learning styles could also influence their future instructional decisions, providing more meaningful learning experiences for K-12 students.

Authors

• Courtney Hattan, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
  Presenting Author

• Emily Grossnickle Peterson, American University
  Non-Presenting Author