Learning Styles: A Critique

Abstract

The concept of `learning style' is virtually taken for granted in management development, in spite of considerable doubts about its validity from within cognitive psychology and education. The first part of this paper summarizes research that is critical of `learning styles', particularly in the form which predominates within management development and introduces the alternative concept of learning strategy, which is rarely encountered in this field. The second part of the paper develops a critique of learning style theory from a critical education perspective, raising even more significant concerns that in decontextualizing learning the concept of style may provide a discriminatory basis for dealing with difference in gender or race.