Discover Your Learning Style
Walter Burke Barbe, born in 1926, earned his bachelor’s in science, masters and PhD from Northwestern University. Barbe set out to investigate the modality strengths of individuals identifying three varying channels for learning, namely visual, auditory and kinesthetic. His research, with his colleagues Milone and Swassing, discovered individuals demonstrated approximately 30% visual strength, 30% mixed strengths, 25% auditory with 15% kinesthetic (Barbe & Milone, 1981).
The VAK (visual, auditory and kinesthetic) Learning Style falls under the umbrella of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). NLP “encompasses the three most influential components involved in producing human experience: neurology, language and programming” (Dilts, 2016, para. 1). NLP investigates the interactions between how neurological (mind) and linguistics (language) within an individual impact behavior (programming).
Visual learners learn by seeing. They have a high ability for visual recall. They prefer to learn using visual representations such as graphs, posters, maps, displays. They frequently use hand movements while talking and have a tendency to look upwards when thinking (Pritchard, 2009).
Auditory learners learn by listening. They favor the audio and have a high ability for auditory recall. They prefer repetition, summaries and benefit from discussions, lectures…