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What's New?

Choosing your Research Design: Watch for Bias!

I have learned about some inappropriate and wasteful research efforts. Please don't add to my list!
Researchers have tried to find differences between individuals' preferences when they are learning some specific skills. That may be appropriate when the skill is carefully chosen. Teaching children to swim is unlikely to be effective when the teaching methods are predominantly Read/write or Visual. There has been VARK research done on swimming, knitting, tying knots and sign language. Often the researcher has failed to note that such tasks have a built-in bias and differences between individuals are meaningless. Of course people who have a relatively high score for the Kinesthetic mode will learn better (and faster) if the task is a Kinesthetic one! And lawyers may have a bigger proportion with Read/write preferences than body shop workers. But beware! Most of the VARK database (60%) is composed of those who have no particular single preference. They are multimodal and use two, three or four modes to help them learn. They will dominate the statistics and make conclusions invalid unless the researcher can use very sophisticated statistical measures to unravel their characteristics.

Some have tried to categorize teaching methods as being more Kinesthetic or more Visual but again, beware! We are multimodal beings and there may be variety even when somebody appears to be using only one mode. An instructor using PowerPoint is probably using mainly Read/write and Aural with very little Visual content(as defined by VARK). But if the instructor chooses to add many examples, case studies and applications as the main parts of the presentation it will have strong elements that suit those who prefer to learn in a Kinesthetic way.

e-Books and Downloads

These four books are now available for purchase as .pdf downloads.
  • How Do I Learn Best: A Sudent's Guide to Improved Learning
  • 55 Strategies
  • Teaching and Learning Styles: VARK Strategies
  • Sports Coaching and Learning: Using learning preferences to enhance performance.

They can be purchased on the VARK website and are downloaded to your computer once payment is made.

Children's Preferences

I receive emails from teachers and parents wanting to know the VARK preferences of their young children. Between birth and around 12 years of age children build their own set of preferences for learning. For example, after birth they develop preferences for touch (K), voices (A), pictures (V), reading(R) and writing (R) in that order.
It is not helpful to categorize young children as being dependent on any set of preferences when they are in those stages of development. And, they are not suited to questionnaires. We offer an observation format that uses questions about the child for grandparents, parents, caregivers, babysitters, siblings, and other relatives who know the child well. It is, intentionally descriptive, not prescriptive. Contact us for a copy but respect the cautions above.

Changes to the Scoring (February - April 2009)

We trialed some changes to the scoring rubric for VARK in March and April 2009. We had been using an arithmetic system for determining the gaps between a respondent's scores to determine if any single preferences existed. While this was a very simple rubric and one that many found helpful to adminster and explain, it was weak as a statistical measure for some research purposes. The Research scoring algorithm used new definitions based on statistical variance. The differences between each of these scoring systems are explained more fully in an article available on the Articles page of the website. There is also more on the Advice page. To go there choose Scoring Advice.

The online questionnaire has retained the Standard scoring rubric. Both are available as a single inexpensive EXCEL purchase item.

Hosting Your Results: The VARK Subscription Service

This popular resource is available for institutions (businesses , colleges, universities) and an inexpensive version is available for individuals. There is also a version for the younger 12-18 age group. Avoid the hassle (and breach of copyright!) of putting software on your web. Use ours! We can host your VARK results and you have special and confidential access to the VARK scores for your clients, your class, your classes, or for your business, college, school or university. There is a demonstration version for you to try before you buy. The price is designed to suit a your budget so you don't have to ask for additional money. You also don't need approval from your IT people as we host the site for you. We will provide you with a password and you can access the results for yourself. The normal subscription period is for six months. Enquire now.

Research Questions

VARK is a very active topic for researchers and this statement is an attempt to assist researchers from following unhelpful pathways.
Firstly, VARK is only part of a learning style. A complete learning style should have information on all the preferences that would affect learning. This includes such things as preferences for learning at different times in the day. It woud be a complex amalgam of questions and analysis. VARK is an intensive look at only one set of preferences within a learning style - the preference that learners have for their communication modes - Visual, Auditory, Read/write and Kinesthetic. VARK is copyright to Neil Fleming as he added Read/write to the previous V, A and K categories.

Comments on Some Research Questions
  1. Can learning be measured? When we learn something, a mental process occurs and that is not observable. The closest we can get to a measure of learning is to ask for some demonstration by the learner to indicate that learning has occurred - a test, demonstration, writing, speaking, running, jumping, analysing... The most powerful way is to ask the learner to teach somebody else. If that is done succesfully we know a great deal about the learner and what is learned. As Proubert said, "To teach is to learn- twice." Most assessment methods in use in higher education are a proxy for learning.
  2. Does knowing your preferences affect learning? It may or it may not. Merely knowing that you learn best by writing does not mean that you will use only that mode for your learning. Many learners copy the learning modes of successful peers instead of using their own preferences. Knowing your weight does not make you take action to reduce (or increase) it. It is the action after "knowing" that determines whether there is a useful link between learning and modal preferences.
  3. What preferences help learners for distance or online learning? All the VARK preferences can be used for all delivery methods. Learners have four preferences not one. They differ in strength and usage but they are not discrete. A researcher will not find that those who succeed with lectures are Auditory learners or that all elite athletes are Kinesthetic. Regardless of our VARK scores we use our four modes in combination so a unimodal presentation or research design is neither possible nor helpful. Learners are adept at using their preferred modes to adapt incoming messages to suit their strategies. When they have a zero VARK preference for Auditory they can still attend lectures, talks, debates and discussions and get some learning from those delivery methods. It is just not their preference! In the same way that they can eat pineapples but prefer kiwifruit. They translate/transform the less-desired input into something they prefer.
  4. Do some VARK categories align with particular delivery methods? They may do so but it is a pointless research exercise as people are multimodal. One researcher found no connection between VARK categories and interactive learning methods. Not surprising! Interactive teaching involves all modes.
  • Should I use the VARK categories for research?We use the VARK categories (e.g. Mild Auditory, Strong Kinesthetic, Visual/Read/write (VA)) only as useful shorthand codes to describe a set of preferences. VARK has four scores and that is intentional. Researchers would be best advised to use all four scores rather than the VARK categories. For some people, the differences in their VARK scores are minimal and we should not assign them into rigid categories for analysis. Of course, using four scores makes research more complicated.

  • If I use all four modes in my teaching will that improve learning for all my students.
    • Not necessarily! It may confuse some learners who might prefer that Read/write modes were used more often. Learners like variety to prevent boredom but using all four modes in a learning session can be counter-productive. Using variety within several sessions is helpful.

    SO WHAT ARE SOME GOOD RESEARCH QUESTS?
    1. Do those who know their VARK scores make changes to their learning?
    2. What are those changes?
    3. Are they successful?
    4. How do learners adapt to learn from modes that they do not prefer?
    5. What strategies do learners use that align with their VARK scores?
    6. Which common strategies do not align with learners' VARK scores?
    7. What are the differences in strategies between learners who have a very strong preference and those who have similar scores for several modes (multimodal)?
    8. Do learners who much prefer two modes use them interchangeably or together or in some order?
    9. What are the learning characteristics of those who have a zero score for a mode?
    10. Do teachers teach use the same modes for teaching that they prefer for their own learning?
    11. Do people's preferences change over time?
    In a recent example a student had a very low score for his Aural preference (His Read/write preference was his highest). When asked about the strategies he used for learning he said he used tape recordings of his lectures and talking things over with friends. He wondered why his GPA was so poor! What would you suggest he try?
    VARK is helpful for learning when you use the strategies aligned with your preference(s). Knowing your preferences is not enough. In any research using VARK, don't just find out your cohort's preferences; find out if they are using them. There is no magic VARK profile for success.

    Disciplines

    When respondents complete the questionnaire online, about one-third of them (500,000+) also provide us with some useful demographic details about themselves. We are expanding the list of options for the section on "Disciplines". If you belong to a discipline that is not listed, and you believe it would attract a large number of respondents please let us know.

    Languages

    We welcome offers to translate the VARK questionnaire into other languages. If you can help, please contact us. In return for your translation we place your name and title with the translation.

    Workshops

    Neil Fleming, the VARK designer, still accepts keynote invitaions and has been facilitating workshops around the world for the past 10 years. There are a range of topics and he can adapt to your needs.(see Workshops on the More Information page). There is increased interest in applying VARK and learning preferences in both academic environments and in high performance (elite) coaching and business environments. Those boring meetings may be the result of learning prefrences.. If you are interested in a keynote presentations or workshop on your site please email Neil and indicate your interest. There is no commitment in asking. He can provide you with email addreses of previous clients to get independent feedback about the effectiveness of these highly particpatory events. They are not PowerPoint driven lectures! That would be anathema for someone who designed VARK!!

    VARK Younger

    The younger version of VARK for those aged 12-18 was revised in September 2007. It has 16 questions, each with four options and it uses language suited to that age group.

    Statistics

    Most of the statistics on the Research page (see More Information) have been updated to 2010.

    VARK SEVEN

    During September 2006 a team of VARK experts (Abby Hassler, Charles Bonwell, Carol Cadigan, Heather Lander and Faye and Neil Fleming) completed a five-yearly review of the VARK questionnaire. There were some questions identified by Arne Norborg, a Norwegian educational psychologist, that were not performing well and some language and examples needed revising. The team devised several new questions and these were tested on the website during September. We finally settled on 16 questions each with four options. The incorrect use of pronouns which upset some grammarians was removed and the language should now be consistent. (There was a good reason to switch from "You" to "I"in the midst of the old question stems - it increased the likelihood that respondents would reflect on real and remembered situations rather than create imaginary ones. But we discarded the grammatical inconsistancy.)

    Much of VARK is the same. The Helpsheets were not altered too much and they remain a strong part of VARK. We are still translating the new questionnaire into other languages. We are offering upgrades to those who have purchased software based on the older VARK versions.

    New statistics based on VARK 7.0 will be placed on this page at regular intervals. We want to preserve the percentage of respondents who report (online) that their VARK scores match their perception of their learning preferences. That is consistently around 60%. Expect more news as our new database grows.

    Personal Learning Profiles

    Did you ever want more detailed feedback about your VARK scores and a learning profile writtten for you; and about you. This service is now available. You will be provided with a detailed description of your learning preferences using an email reply. The cost varies with currency changes but is approximately $US30 or £UK15 or an equivalent in other currencies. An example of such a profile is on this website. If you would like to download that example select here: Example Report

    If you purchase an Enhanced Profile you will be emailed your profile within two days, AND then you will have the opportunity to have a personal email exchange with Neil Fleming about your learning.

    If you would like to use this service, go to the questionnaire, complete it, and look for Personal Learning Profile. To go to the VARK questionnaire click here: Questionnaire page.

    Responding to Your Emails

    I receive many emails requesting permission to use the copyright VARK questionnaire and associated materials. I am grateful that people ask for permission and I try to respond to each request within 48 hours. Occasionally my response is returned to me so you do not get a reply. This may be because:

    • the email address you gave me is incorrect,
    • your mailbox is full or
    • your spam checker thinks that "VARK" is a naughty word.
    If you don't get a reply within 48 hours, please email again, preferably with a solution that will allow me to respond e.g. another email address.

    		  
     
     
     

    © copyright 2001 - 2010 Neil Fleming