http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … 02553.html

'If you are in a mischievous mood and want to get a rise out of your favorite teachers or principals, send them a copy of "Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence," in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, Volume 9, No. 3, December 2008. (Actually, it came out in December 2009, but for a reason understood only by academics in the timeless search for truth, its official publication date was 12 months previous.)

Here is my summary of the 15-page paper: Learning styles are hogwash.

It's not quite that bad. The four authors agree that "people differ in the degree to which they have some fairly specific aptitudes for different kinds of thinking and for processing different types of information." Some of us consider ourselves visual learners. Some of us think we learn best if we use our hands: draw, make models, stack coins. The authors conclude, however, that "at present, there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice."'