Teachers’ Beliefs in Learning Styles and Ableist Beliefs About Learning Disabilities

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 9:50 am Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Challenging Ableism in Education: Teachers' Beliefs and Practices (Table 7)

Abstract

Learning styles are a neuromyth, which is a belief about how the brain works that has been shown to be inaccurate or untrue. These beliefs saturate the education landscape; there is, however, a dearth of evidence of how these learning styles beliefs in teachers specifically relate to teachers’ beliefs about students’ learning disabilities. This preliminary analysis (N=53) of teacher beliefs in learning styles and their ableist beliefs about learning disabilities found that there is an overall relationship between these two variables, and that teachers in this sample who believed in learning styles at higher rates were more likely to also hold ableist beliefs about SWD. Additionally, general education teachers are likely to espouse both beliefs, whereas special education are not.

Authors

• Armineh Hallaran, City College of New York - CUNY

• Nicole L. Lorenzetti, City College of New York - CUNY