The VAK learning styles model is a simple way to explain and understand various learning styles.
Understanding the VAK learning styles model
The VAK learning styles model was developed by child psychologists such as Fernald, Keller, Orton, Gillingham, and Montessori beginning in the 1920s.
The model suggests every person’s learning style is a combination of auditory, visual, and kinesthetic (tactile) stimuli.
No single style is the better than the rest, with each individual incorporating multiple stimuli depending on their strengths, learning preferences, and the situation at hand.
However, the model does acknowledge that in general, learners gravitate toward a single and dominant style over time.
Classical thinking also suggests predominant learning styles change as the individual grows older.
During pre-school and early primary school, learning occurs via kinesthetic stimuli. In middle school, the style is more visual.
In high school, university, and adulthood, information is presented using auditory means.
The VAK learning styles model provides a simple framework for assessing someone’s preferred learning style.
Using this information, learning methods and experiences can be designed and tailored to the particular needs of the individual.
The three stimuli of the VAK learning styles model
Here is a look at the three learning styles and how they assist in learning:
Auditory
These learners are the sort of people who talk to themselves by moving their lips and reading out loud.
With a preference for sound, they may have difficulty learning by reading or writing.
Instructors can cater to this learner by following the old adage of “tell them what they are going to learn, teach them, and then tell them what they have learned.”
Auditory activities such as brainstorming, buzz groups, and quizzes can also be used.
Visual
For visual learners there exists two sub-categories – linguistic and spatial.
Visual-linguistic learners prefer reading and writing tasks and can memorise written information readily.
Visual-spatial learners have difficulty with written words, instead preferring videos, charts, live demonstrations, and other visual cues.
Learning for these types is facilitated by the individual visualising faces and places and concocting stories with their vivid imaginations.
Kinesthetic
These learners perform best when touching and moving.
Here, there are also two sub-categories: kinesthetic (movement) and tactile (touch). Kinesthetic learning is a little more difficult to describe and cater for.
When attending lectures, these individuals may take notes simply to get their hands moving.
Similar activities that encourage movement are picture drawing, doodling, and the highlighting of important passages.
While reading, they also like to scan the information first before delving into the finer details.
Given their preference for movement, kinesthetic learners also appreciate regular exercise breaks and intermissions.
Younger, more tactile learners can also be helped by offering them props such as coloured pens, play-dough, and soft or brightly-coloured rubber balls.
Key takeaways
The VAK learning styles model is a simple way to explain and understand various learning styles. It was developed by several child psychologists in the 1920s.
The VAK learning styles model provides a simple framework for assessing someone’s preferred way of learning. Using these insights, tailored learning experiences can be designed to maximise information retention.
The VAK learning styles model is based on three categories of stimuli: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. One individual can exhibit a preference for any style depending on the context. However, most people tend to gravitate to one dominant style over time.
fixed mindset believes their intelligence and talents are fixed traits that cannot be developed. The two mindsets were developed by American psychologist Carol Dweck while studying human motivation.
Both mindsets are comprised of conscious and subconscious thought patterns established at a very young age. In adult life, they have profound implications for personal and professional success.
Individuals with a growthmindset devote more time and effort to achieving difficult goals and by extension, are less concerned with the opinions or abilities of others. Individuals with a fixed mindset are sensitive to criticism and may be preoccupied with proving their talents to others.
Constructive feedback is supportive in nature and designed to help employees improve or correct their performance or behavior. Note that the intention of such feedback is to achieve a positive outcome for the employee based on comments, advice, or suggestions.
High-performance coaches work with individuals in personal and professional contexts to enable them to reach their full potential. While these sorts of coaches are commonly associated with sports, it should be noted that the act of coaching is a specific type of behavior that is also useful in business and leadership.
The training of trainers model seeks to engage master instructors in coaching new, less experienced instructors with a particular topic or skill. The training of trainers (ToT) model is a framework used by master instructors to train new instructors, enabling them to subsequently train other people in their organization.
Active listening is the process of listening attentively while someone speaks and displaying understanding through verbal and non-verbal techniques. Active listening is a fundamental part of good communication, fostering a positive connection and building trust between individuals.
Active recall enables the practitioner to remember information by moving it from short-term to long-term memory, where it can be easily retrieved. The technique is also known as active retrieval or practice testing. With active recall, the process is reversed since learning occurs when the student retrieves information from the brain.
The phrase “baptism by fire” originates from the Bible in Matthew 3:11. In Christianity, the phrase was associated with personal trials and tribulations and was also used to describe the martyrdom of an individual. Many years later, it was associated with a soldier going to war for the first time. Here, the baptism was the battle itself. “Baptism by fire” is a phrase used to describe the process of an employee learning something the hard way with great difficulty.
The Dreyfus model of skill acquisition was developed by brothers Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1980. The Dreyfus model of skill acquisition is a learning progression framework. It argues that as one learns a new skill via external instruction, they pass through five stages of development: novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient, and expert.
The Kolb reflective cycle was created by American educational theorist David Kolb. In 1984, Kolb created the Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) based on the premise that learning is facilitated by direct experience. In other words, the individual learns through action. The Kolb reflective cycle is a holistic learning and development process based on the reflection of active experiences.
The Method of Loci is a mnemonic strategy for memorizing information. The Method of Loci gets its name from the word “loci”, which is the plural of locus – meaning location or place. It is a form of memorization where an individual places information they want to remember along with points of an imaginary journey. By retracing the same route through the journey, the individual can recall the information in a specific order. For this reason, many consider this memory tool a location-based mnemonic.
The Experience Curve argues that the more experience a business has in manufacturing a product, the more it can lower costs. As a company gains un know-how, it also gains in terms of labor efficiency, technology-driven learning, product efficiency, and shared experience, to reduce the cost per unit as the cumulative volume of production increases.
The Feynman Technique is a mental model and strategy for learning something new and committing it to memory. It is often used in exam preparation and for understanding difficult concepts. Physicist Richard Feynman elaborated this method, and it’s a powerful technique to explain anything.
Learning organizations are those that encourage adaptative and generative learning where employees are motivated to think outside the box to solve problems. While many definitions of a learning organization exist today, author Peter Senge first popularized the term in his book The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organisation during the 1990s.
The forgetting curve was first proposed in 1885 by Hermann Ebbinghaus, a German psychologist and pioneer of experimental research into memory. The forgetting curve illustrates the rate at which information is lost over time if the individual does not make effort to retain it.
Instructor-led training is a more traditional, top-down, teacher-oriented approach to learning that occurs in online or offline classroom environments. The approach connects instructors with students to encourage discussion and interaction in a group or individual context, with many enjoying ILT over other methods as they can seek direct clarification on a topic from the source. Instructor-led training (ILT), therefore, encompasses any form of training provided by an instructor in an online or offline classroom setting.
The 5 Whys method is an interrogative problem-solving technique that seeks to understand cause-and-effect relationships. At its core, the technique is used to identify the root cause of a problem by asking the question of why five times. This might unlock new ways to think about a problem and therefore devise a creative solution to solve it.
Single-loop learning was developed by Dr. Chris Argyris, a well-respected author and Harvard Business School professor in the area of metacognitive thinking. He defined single-loop learning as “learning that changes strategies of action (i.e. the how) in ways that leave the values of a theory of action unchanged (i.e. the why).” Single-loop learning is a learning process where people, groups, or organizations modify their actions based on the difference between expected and actual outcomes.
Spaced repetition is a technique where individuals review lessons at increasing intervals to memorize information. Spaced repetition is based on the premise that the brain learns more effectively when the individual “spaces out” the learning process. Thus, it can be used as a mnemonic technique to transform short-term memory into long-term memory.
Blended learning is a broad and imprecise field that makes it difficult to define. However, in most cases, it is considered to be a form of hybrid learning that combines online and offline instructional methods.
The term lessons learned refers to the various experiences project team members have while participating in a project. Lessons are shared in a review session which usually occurs once the project has been completed, with any improvements or best practices incorporated into subsequent projects.
Post-mortem analyses review projects from start to finish to determine process improvements and ensure that inefficiencies are not repeated in the future. In the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK), this process is referred to as “lessons learned”.
Instructor-led training is a more traditional, top-down, teacher-oriented approach to learning that occurs in online or offline classroom environments. The approach connects instructors with students to encourage discussion and interaction in a group or individual context, with many enjoying ILT over other methods as they can seek direct clarification on a topic from the source. Instructor-led training (ILT), therefore, encompasses any form of training provided by an instructor in an online or offline classroom setting.
The 5E Instructional Model is a framework for improving teaching practices through discussion, observation, critique, and reflection. Teachers and students move through each phase linearly, but some may need to be repeated or cycled through several times to ensure effective learning. This is a form of inquiry-based learning where students are encouraged to discover information and formulate new insights themselves.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
