1 Designing with learning myths in mind Jay Sloan-Lynch, PhD Boulder, CO Contact:
[email protected] 2 Abstract Education is notorious for its quick embrace of unproven learning and teaching practices. Popular theories like learning styles, multiple intelligences, and hemispheric dominance pervade commercial educational products, teaching curricula, and professional development programs, despite their scientifically dubious status. And recent surveys of educators, across a wide range of countries and cultures, reveal endorsement levels approaching or exceeding 85% for many of these learning myths. Extending this work, we employed Bayesian estimation to estimate endorsement levels for several popular learning myths among an increasingly influential and growing segment in education: instructional designers. While our findings suggest slightly lower myth endorsement levels among instructional designers, our data and model still predict overall endorsement levels for several popular learning myths to be greater than 70% with .90 probability. Given the continued popularity of learning myths, despite more than a decade of concerted debunking efforts, we conclude this article with some observations that may suggest a more fruitful way forward when it comes to challenging their enduring appeal. Keywords: learning styles; neuromyths; learning myths; instructional design; Bayesian estimation 3 Designing with learning myths in mind For decades, learning scientists have lamented the failure of education research to meaningfully impact the practice of education. Studies consistently show a lack of awareness on the part of students and educators regarding effective learning strategies and instructional methods (see, e.g., Bjork, Dunlosky, & Kornell, 2013; Karpicke, Butler, & Roediger, 2009; Kornell & Bjork, 2007). Additionally, the popularity of empirically unsupported learning myths continue to hinder the expansion of evidence-informed practice in education (Dekker, Lee, Howard-Jones, & Jolles, 2012; De Bruyckere, Kirschner, & Hulshof, 2015).