Score Well With VARK Learning Style: Do You Fall Under V, A, R or K?

How can I learn better? This may be one of the questions that frequently occur in the mind of a student. Maybe you are seeking advice from teachers, parents and friends to come up with better results next time. Maybe you are able to understand a topic better when you listen, use graphics or charts, read, write or practise it. Have you ever thought of what is the learning style suitable for you? One such learning method is known as the VARK model.

The VARK model was launched in 1987 by Neil D Fleming, a teacher from New Zealand. The letters in VARK stands for Visual, Aural, Read/Write and Kinesthetic. The VARK learn model was launched when Fleming was working as an inspector in the New Zealand Education System. Let us understand what is Visual, Aural, Read/Write And Kinesthetic.

Visual

Visual in the VARK model includes symbols, graphs, charts, pie diagrams, hierarchies and other methods for representing information. It is to be noted that it does not include videos and still photographs. Information processing will be quicker for visual learners when they see a graph, patterns, shapes or designs than words describing it.

For Example- Let a student learn about distance and displacement. The teacher is giving an example of a rectangular path. A boy travels from A to D and then from D to A. Teacher draws a figure and tells us that the distance travelled is AD+DC (here 3+4=7 m) and displacement is 5 m by Pythagoras theorem.

A visual learner could better understand with a diagrammatic representation as below

Aural

The A in VARK learning style stands for “aural”. The aural learners prefer listening to lectures rather than writing or using graphics. They prefer group discussions, chats, using mobile phones, radios and more. Aural learners sort things by speaking first rather than sorting it and then speaking. They learn through reading loudly and talking to themself or through a debate or group discussion.

For an aural learner, listening to the teacher's narration would be better: “Distance is the total path length travelled and displacement is the shortest distance between initial and final point.”

Read/Write

These types of learners prefer dealing with text. They read books or notes and write it down and again refer to it. Students with this learning style create presentations by gathering information from books, notes and online reading. These people like making assignments, manuals, reports and diaries. They write down the information from graphical representations rather than visualizing and understanding it.

This type of learners prefer reading the concept of distance and displacement from a book and writing it as a note.

Kinesthetic

These learners prefer learning through experience and practice. They learn through experiments, activities, simulations, demonstrations, case studies, movies, working examples and more. They give importance to real experience and value the experience of others.

This type of learners prefer trying walking along the rectangular path and measuring it using measuring tape.

VARK Questionnaire

Students are given a set of questions known as the VARK questionnaire through which they can identify their best suitable learning style with VARAK test scores. It can be V, A, R, K or a mix of it. For example, if a student learns better when he sees a visual representation, then he comes under visual learner and his score in ‘V’ will be higher. Or students may get equal scores in all categories of VARK assessment. They come under multimodal.

Multimodality

Multimodality means a person may have more than one preference of learning method.

A student may learn equally when he sees a visual or listen to an audio or write it.

So, a fixed learning style cannot be determined. Some students use learning styles depending on the context. These types of learners may have equal scores in all the VARAK models.

Some other learners gather information from all the preferred models. They take time to learn things, but they have deeper and broader understanding as they gather maximum information from all the preferred models.

A student can identify his best learning style and apply it if he feels comfortable with the style. Students may have to shift the learning style according to what they learn. For example, Mathematics cannot be learned just by listening, it requires practising also. VARK learning test can be used to identify the best learning style suitable for you.