Learning and Teaching Styles - Visual and Auditory Learners
Felder, R.M., and Silverman, L.K. (1988). Learning and Teaching Styles in Engineering Education. Engr. Education, 78(7), 674-681.
http://www.ncsu.edu/effective_teaching
The ways people receive information may be divided into three categories, sometimes referred to as modalities; visual – sights, pictures, diagrams, symbols; and auditory – sounds, words; kinesthetic – feelings, tastes, smells. An extensive body of research has established that most people learn most effectively with one of the three modalities and tend to miss or ignore information presented in either of the other two. There are thus visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners.
Visual learners remember best what they see: pictures, diagrams, flow charts, time lines, films, demonstrations. If something is simply said to them they will probably forget it. Auditory learners remember much of what they hear and more of what they hear and then say. They get a lot out of discussion, prefer verbal explanation to visual demonstration, and learn effectively by explaining things to others.
Most people of college age and older are visual while most college teaching is verbal – the information presented is predominantly auditory lecturing) or a visual representation of auditory information (words and mathematical symbols written in texts and handouts, on transparencies, or on a chalkboard). A second learning/teaching style mismatch thus exists, this one between the preferred input modality of most students and the preferred presentation mode of most professors. Irrespective of the extent of the mismatch, presentation that use both visual and auditory modalities reinforce learning for all students. The point is made by a study carried out by the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company that concludes that students retain 10 percent of what they read, 26 percent of what they hear, 30 percent of what they see, 50 percent of what they see and hear, 70 percent of what they say, and 90 percent of what they say as they do something.
How to teach both visual and auditory learners: few engineering instructors would have to modify what they usually do in order to present information auditorily; lectures and readings accomplish this task. What must generally be added to accommodate all students is visual material-pictures, diagrams, sketches. Process flow charts, network diagrams, and logic or information flow charts should be used to illustrate complex processes or algorithms; mathematical functions should be illustrated by graphs and films or live demonstrations of working processes should be presented whenever possible.
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