Prevalent beliefs in learning styles myths: Indonesian research trends on learning styles

Humairah Fauziah
Universitas Trunojoyo Madura, Indonesia
Universitas Negeri Malang, Indonesia
Bambang Yudi Cahyono
Universitas Negeri Malang, Indonesia

This study investigates Indonesian research trends on learning styles and searches for evidence verifying or refuting the learning styles matching hypothesis. This hypothesis, considered a myth in learning styles theory by some scholars, claims that a learner will learn better when taught according to his or her learning style, but there has been no strong empirical evidence to support it. We also attempted to analyse researchers' judgments concerning the matching hypothesis by identifying epistemic modality markers in the manuscripts. The data were research articles written in English by Indonesian authors that have been published in journals indexed by Google Scholar, Scopus, or Web of Science. After sifting through abundant research articles discussing learning styles, we obtained 33 articles that matched the criteria of this study. Based on the data analysis, we discovered the 33 articles comprised 19 descriptive studies, 2 correlational studies, 9 causal-comparative studies, and 3 experimental studies. In addition, we found that only one piece of evidence refuted the matching hypothesis, while the majority showed that the researchers were likely to believe in the matching hypothesis.
[ PDF full text for this article ]

Authors: Humairah Fauziah is a lecturer in the English Education Program at Universitas Trunojoyo Madura starting in 2022. She is now studying in Universitas Negeri Malang. She obtained her Masters degree from Universitas Negeri Malang and her bachelor degree from Universitas Islam Malang. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3524-9992 Email: humairah.fauziah@gmail.com, humairah.fauziah.2102219@students.um.ac.id Bambang Yudi Cahyono is a Professor in Applied Linguistics at Universitas Negeri Malang, East Java, Indonesia. He earned his MA from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada and PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia. His research interests include English teacher professional development, ICT in ELT, and second language writing. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5210-5208 Email: bambang.yudi.fs@um.ac.id Please cite as: (2022). Prevalent beliefs in learning styles myths: Indonesian research trends on learning styles. Issues in Educational Research, 32(4), 1384-1402. http://www.iier.org.au/iier32/fauziah.pdf