Led by research fellow and former teacher Trisha Jha from the Centre for Independent Studies, the research canvassed the beliefs of 377 teachers on ten fundamental principles about teaching and learning, finding some 88 per cent still believe in the pervasive ‘learning styles’ myth that students learn better when teaching is tailored to whether they are supposedly visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learners.

Jha says the magnitude of this ‘extraordinary’ finding came as a surprise, even though we know the myth aligns with a particular ideological view on teaching that has been historically taught in initial teacher education courses.

The harmful influence the learning styles myth might be having in classrooms across the country is a very real concern, she adds.

“At the day-to-day classroom level, it emphasises this idea that students should be able to choose things in ways that suits them, as those students themselves are the best judges of what’s going to be effective for learning.

“And that actually, I think, sidelines the role of the expertise of the teacher. That is, it encourages teachers to act more as that ‘guide on the side’, while students interact with learning in their own way and in their own preference, as opposed to whole-class explicit teaching that we know is effective.”

There are other risks as well, Jha flags, such as students being pigeonholed as certain kinds of learners and teachers being prompted to design ineffective ‘choose your own’ assessments based on the myth.

“I think [the] the reason why this is such a big problem [is] because it is indicative of a belief among teachers that students learn differently, as opposed to they all learn the same way – we actually just need to figure out what [they] need to learn more about and teach accordingly.”

Indeed, just 36 per cent of teachers rejected the claim that whole-class teaching is not effective because every student learns differently.

CIS research fellow Trisha Jha says Australian teachers have been let down by a system that has failed to ensure they have a shared body of knowledge about how students learn best and what evidence-based instruction actually entails.

Other headline findings include:

  • 65 per cent of teacher believe students learn little from lecturing or reading but much more from doing activities and teaching others, despite the claim being inconsistent with the evidence. Only 12 per cent rejected it.
  • 38 per cent back the myth that students learn better through discovery than explicit instruction, while only 30 per cent correctly rejected it.
  • Four in 10 teachers believed testing tends to detract from learning, despite evidence that frequent low-stakes testing can strengthen retention and retrieval.

A total of ten questions were posed to teachers, with 4.53 the overall mean correct score. 

Just 16 partcipants (representing just over 4 per cent of the sample) answered eight or more questions correctly.

The data is especially telling given the widespread shifts to the science of learning and the explicit instruction mandates now in place across various school systems, Jha suggests.

On this point she says that in no way does the study seek to point the finger at individual teachers for the apparent professional knowledge gap.

“This is not about blaming teachers. It is about an education system that has failed to give them a clear, coherent and evidence-based understanding of how students actually learn.

“Governments can mandate explicit teaching, but a mandate on paper will not transform classrooms if teachers have not been given the knowledge that explains why those practices work.”

According to the researcher, unlike with other professions like law and medicine, our policy settings have not encouraged an evidence-aligned, shared body of knowledge amongst teachers about how learning occurs and how this should then inform instruction.

“In the same way that we might see that lawyers all have to do the same subjects at uni, or that doctors all have to sit the same exams which cover the same things, regardless of which medical school they go to – those elements of commonality are … part of professional knowledge, and we haven’t historically had [this in teaching].”

Interestingly, teachers’ knowledge about the science of learning did not increase with age or experience in the job.

Jha notes that we cannot assume this will develop on its own accord, and that policymakers and system leaders ought to build this body of knowledge into teacher induction, accreditation, registration and ongoing professional learning.

The portfolio-based assessments that teachers are currently required to undergo at different levels to demonstrate their capacity don’t really capture evidence of effective teaching, Jha says.

These include teaching practice assessments at university, a VIT inquiry for Victorian teachers and peer observations, for example, she explains.

“We’re asking them to do [things that are] very time consuming, but that [don’t] necessarily confer benefit in terms of being a clear quality indicator.”

Jha is calling for written assessments that test teachers’ knowledge of the fundamentals when it comes to the science of learning and its implications for their practice.

“The concept of a written assessment, I think, is something that we could use much more widely, and it could be based on the sorts of things that I’ve tried to test [in this study].

“So, the ability to identify myths from truths when it comes to how students learn.

“But you could also potentially have things like, ‘this is an instructional scenario, pick the correct answer’. So, I'm not trying to be prescriptive, but I am just trying to introduce the idea…” Jha says.

Strengthening ITE will not go far enough towards addressing Australian teachers’ knowledge gap, the study contends.

Jha is also calling for reform of the national teaching standards to align more closely with England’s Early Career Framework.

“…they’re insufficiently detailed to actually define and enumerate what expert performance looks like at different career stages, like it doesn't actually set out what’s desired and what we actually want teachers’ practice to look like at the different levels.”

Part of the problem is that governments have generally trusted the teaching profession to regulate itself – but the loudest voices in education can too often espouse views and approaches that sit at odds with the evidence lies, Jha says.

“[University academics] are considered the experts, because we don’t allow teachers themselves to have a voice, so we kind of go to academics as a proxy for teachers, which is not helpful.

“… then sometimes you might have subject teacher associations, or you might have unions that are consulted as part of being the representative voice of teachers.

“But the problem is that there’s no guarantee actually those voices are kind of acting in line with what, with what the evidence is…”

The research builds on Jha’s earlier work in this space.