Identifying Learning Objectives and Student Needs - The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game - page 188

various models such as Kolb s Experiential Learning Theory that identifies four

learning styles: converger, diverger, assimilator, and accomodator. Peter Honey
and Alan Mumford adapted Kolb

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s model to managers in business. Anthony F.
Gregorc and Kathleen A. Butler based their model on how individuals perceived
the world. The Sudbury model of democratic education stated that there were
many ways to learn, and that each child should be given the personal freedom to
learn in his own fashion. Neil D. Fleming

s popular VARK model identified
visual learners, auditory learners, and tactical learners.

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All of these models and others have been heavily criticized. In 2009, a panel
commissioned by the Association for Psychological Sciences published a report
that outlined a research design to properly study the effect of learning styles, and
it asserted that this methodology was almost entirely absent from learning styles
studies. Of the few studies utilizing this research design, all but one feature
negative findings. They also doubted the value of the significant cost of
attempting to identify the precise learning style of every student over other
interventions such as individual tutors. They concluded that at present, there is

no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning styles assessments
into general educational practice. Thus, limited education resources would better
be devoted to adopting other educational practices that have strong evidence
base, of which there are an increasing number.

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Then, of course, there has been an outcry from the defenders of learning styles and
a subsequent pushback from defenders of the critique, and on and on and on.

How Gamers Learn
I am not a researcher or a scientist. I certainly am not going to step into the
middle of this debate. One day it may be proven that the players of video games
fall into a certain learning style, or none at all. Or there may still be some new
secret to education out there we have not yet discovered. All very well and good,
but it doesn t matter. Why? For the simple reason that designers of multiplayer

classrooms are not exploiting learning styles or any other educational system.
Video games succeed for millions upon millions of players because it doesn

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matter how the players learn. They learn because they want to.

The punishment inflicted on video gamers when they fail is minor when
compared to failure in the real world. So players can feel they are heroically