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The Biggest Myth In Education

Veritasium

21M subscribers • 15 videos on Rounds

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  • Recommended by 7 people, in Hacker News, across 6 different months.
  • The description links 1 paper.
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For anyone, no background needed. Education, not medical advice.

15M views5 years ago7 recommendations

Brain and nervesMemory and learning

An explanation of the scientific evidence showing that the popular concept of individual learning styles is a myth.

You are not a visual learner — learning styles are a stubborn myth. Part of this video is sponsored by Google Search. Special thanks to Prof. Daniel Willingham for the interview and being part of this video. Special thanks to Dr Helen Georigou for reviewing the script and helping with the scientific literature. Special thanks to Jennifer Borgioli Binis for consulting on the script. MinutePhysics video on a better way to picture atoms -- ve42.co/Atom ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ References: Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological science in the public interest, 9(3), 105-119. — ve42.co/Pashler2008 Willingham, D. T., Hughes, E. M., & Dobolyi, D. G. (2015). The scientific status of learning styles theories. Teaching of Psychology, 42(3), 266-271. — ve42.co/Willingham Massa, L. J., & Mayer, R. E. (2006). Testing the ATI hypothesis: Should multimedia instruction accommodate verbalizer-visualizer cognitive style?. Learning and Individual Differences, 16(4), 321-335. — ve42.co/Massa2006 Riener, C., & Willingham, D. (2010). The myth of learning styles. Change: The magazine of higher learning, 42(5), 32-35.— ve42.co/Riener2010 Husmann, P. R., & O'Loughlin, V. D. (2019). Another nail in the coffin for learning styles? Disparities among undergraduate anatomy students’ study strategies, class performance, and reported VARK learning styles. Anatomical sciences education, 12(1), 6-19. — ve42.co/Husmann2019 Snider, V. E., & Roehl, R. (2007). Teachers’ beliefs about pedagogy and related issues. Psychology in the Schools, 44, 873–886. doi:10.1002/pits.20272 — ve42.co/Snider2007 Fleming, N., & Baume, D. (2006). Learning Styles Again: VARKing up the right tree!. Educational developments, 7(4), 4. — ve42.co/Fleming2006 Rogowsky, B. A., Calhoun, B. M., & Tallal, P. (2015). Matching learning style to instructional method: Effects on comprehension. Journal of educational psychology, 107(1), 64. — ve42.co/Rogowskyetal Coffield, Frank; Moseley, David; Hall, Elaine; Ecclestone, Kathryn (2004). — ve42.co/Coffield2004 Furey, W. (2020). THE STUBBORN MYTH OF LEARNING STYLES. Education Next, 20(3), 8-13. — ve42.co/Furey2020 Dunn, R., Beaudry, J. S., & Klavas, A. (2002). Survey of research on learning styles. California Journal of Science Education II (2). — ve42.co/Dunn2002 ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Special thanks to Patreon supporters: Mike Tung, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay, Ismail Öncü Usta, Paul Peijzel, Crated Comments, Anna, Mac Malkawi, Michael Schneider, Oleksii Leonov, Jim Osmun, Tyson McDowell, Ludovic Robillard, Jim buckmaster, fanime96, Juan Benet, Ruslan Khroma, Robert Blum, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Vincent, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Alfred Wallace, Arjun Chakroborty, Joar Wandborg, Clayton Greenwell, Pindex, Michael Krugman, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Sam Lutfi, Ron Neal ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

Why it's here

7 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended as an explanation of why the concept of learning styles is scientifically unsupported.

seerin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Long-term NAEP scores for 13-year-olds drop for first time since testing began”

While we now know a lot about teaching, a lot of misconceptions have been found recently regarding “truths” about teaching, its a fascinating subject really, and the main problem seems to be lack of rigorous repeatable double blind testing for all of those things. Veritasium did a very interesting video on the subject: link to this video

travisgriggsin Hacker News • Recommends

On “How imaginary numbers were invented [video]”

I love Veritasium. Derek has done a number of videos that are awesome like this. The videos are great and educational, but he also manages to subtly weave in an almost spiritual subtext to them as well. For example, in this one, you learn about imaginary numbers in some cool ways, history, how awesome e^ix is, etc, but also this yen-yang balance between embracing not only what is real but taking a chance on what is imaginary. Some of my other favorites: - link to this video - link - link - link - link I think he’s going to lose the $10,000 bet on the car though.

systemvoltagein Hacker News • Recommends

On “Amazon's new role-playing game can help you build your AWS skills”

I kind of wish this urban myth dies. There are more common things amongst humans about learning than differences. By a long shot. Veritasium covered this in much greater detail but still approachable by the laymen: link to this video It almost always shutsdown the discussion of improving or criticizing learning methods. Because, there is this deus-ex-machina of learning "Everyone is different" and therefore we must not question, we must not contest, we must not improve. Btw, this is also rampant in other dysfunctional fields such as nutrition and product-reviews.

ycdavidsmithin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: Best beginner friendly linear algebra book?”

“Introduction to Linear Algebra” by Gilbert Strang is the book. Recommend getting a used older edition as not much has changed. His course at MIT is legendary, completely available online link And there’s so much good linear algebra stuff on YouTube from 3brown1blue. If you can do one thing now, watch this Veritasium video to disprove the myth that you’re a visual learner: link to this video .

Dirisin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: Best beginner friendly linear algebra book?”

Veritasium has a very good video on the subject.0 Sources are in the description but I might as well post them here. Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological science in the public interest, 9(3), 105-119. — link Willingham, D. T., Hughes, E. M., & Dobolyi, D. G. (2015). The scientific status of learning styles theories. Teaching of Psychology, 42(3), 266-271. — link Massa, L. J., & Mayer, R. E. (2006). Testing the ATI hypothesis: Should multimedia instruction accommodate verbalizer-visualizer cognitive style?. Learning and Individual Differences, 16(4), 321-335. — link Riener, C., & Willingham, D. (2010). The myt…

irajdeepin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Things software developers should learn about learning”

you'll definitely find this video: link to this video interesting. Here they discuss the (lack of)efficacy of "visual learning"

matt_jin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Eloquent JavaScript 4th edition (2024)”

This is debunked to some extent. Veritasium made a good video about it. link to this video Personally I find a multi-pronged approach is necessary to really learn anything. Read it. Read it again. Visual guides are helpful. Work some examples. Make some mistakes, debug them, find the corner cases, write tests. Eventually when I've poked around the material for a while it starts to bed in. Three months later it's forgotten, but when I learn it the next time I move a lot faster!

travisgriggsin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Ask HN: How Do You Learn?”

I learn any way I can. Having a purpose to learn helps (I need this knowledge, I want this knowledge because I think it's cool, etc). I will try books, videos, whatever works. Like folded steel and alloys, I find that I learn things from lots of different angles, and appreciate the amalgamation. Veritasium did a whole video [video ] recently pointing out that it's really hard for us to self ascribe our best learning methods. I'll take whatever works and try as many as I can to keep the experience as rich as possible. If there's any unifying theme for me, it's "I learn by embracing Humility, and avoiding Lazy".

a_din Hacker News • Mentions

On “Visually stunning math concepts which are easy to explain”

What do you think about a recent Veritassium video that discusses the idea that ‘there is no such thing as a visual learner’ ( link to this video ) Just curious.

gobdovanin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Visually stunning math concepts which are easy to explain”

…s for this (they start paying attention when you draw, they fall somewhere on the Bell curve such that they need that extra representation to get it, as the Veritasium video also presents with the memory experiment), but I would doubt that persistent learning styles of your students would be the differentiator, which is what the video discredits ( link to this video ).…

fouricin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Multitasking Doesn't Work”

…t of skill as a novice (Dunning-Kruger), and the ability to multitask are all well-known cases of it, with many more lesser known (e.g. whether one is a "visual" or "verbal" learner1) - so, you should be wary about having too much self-confidence in your own capabilities, especially for something as poorly-understood as software engineering. 1 link to this video…

teleforcein Hacker News • Mentions

On “Seven Deadly Sins of Introductory Programming Language Design (1996) [pdf]”

Very insightful paper, thanks for sharing. Firstly, I'm surprised that having no garbage collection did not make to the list of the seven deadly sins. Secondly, someone here also mentioned about the very useful Turbo Pascal IDE and having an excellent IDE can really help in the visual learning approach that's required by all learners 1. If any programming languages has the intuitive capability for real-time visual interactions as described by Brett Victor it will be great 2. Thirdly, the paper failed to mention that beginner friendly programming language has a very high chance to be adopted by the industry and becoming extremely popular. This is self evident by the recent exponential pop…

modelviewpotatoin Hacker News • Mentions

On “What does it mean to listen on a port?”

I've seen somewhere that "everyone learns differently" might not actually be true. I found this video from Veritasium that explains it: link to this video

rg111in Hacker News • Mentions

On “Ask HN: How to learn math from zero for adults?”

I think that the fact that there are special types of learners have been debunked thoroughly. Veritasium recently made a video, too 0. 3b1b is a fantastic supplementary resource. But you can't start with it, or use it as your primary resource. That would be a mistake. 0: link to this video

thaumasiotesin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Ask HN: Best beginner friendly linear algebra book?”

> But aside from the flat statement do you have anything to back it up? Well, here's a comment from elsewhere in the thread: > If you can do one thing now, watch this Veritasium video to disprove the myth that you’re a visual learner: link to this video . ( link ) I haven't watched the video, but, like your parent comment, I was already aware that "learning styles" was a research area supported almost exclusively by fraud. If you want more links, you can find them pretty easily through link .

tptacekin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Ask HN: Best beginner friendly linear algebra book?”

This video about "learning styles" and the idea that there's no such thing as a "visual learner" is all over the thread: link to this video It's worth calling out that the video itself doesn't support some of the blunt arguments being made here. The point of the video is that it's likely that everyone does better with a multimodal approach. It thus remains reasonable to seek out books that do a good job with visual representations! No visual components, or, worse, bad diagrams are, according to the video, an impediment to everyone, not just people who have used a disfavored term in their Ask HN question. :) I like 3Blue1Brown as much as everyone else, it's an achievement and kind of a joy to watch, but…