Accommodating Different Learning Styles in the Teaching of Economics: with Emphasis on Fleming and Mills’s Sensory-based Learning Style Typology

Abstract

Students prefer to learn in different ways. These learning preferences are commonly known as learning styles. This variety in learning styles among students suggests that instructors should teach their course materials in different ways to cater to different learning styles. In addition, according to (Nilson 2010), when our society is concerned with fairness and equality, teaching to different styles is a main facet of equity. This paper focuses on Fleming and Mill’s VARK model (1992) to describe students’ different learning styles and explain why and in what ways economics instructors can accommodate different learning styles in their teaching. More specifically, the present paper aims to examine different learning styles and introduce teaching tools for accommodating different learning styles in the context of teaching economics. In addition to identifying learning-style-specific teaching instruments for the teaching of economics, the paper provides some prominent examples of each in the literature of economic education. Finally, considering recent advancements and availability of various technologies, existing evidence, general growing consensus on the issue, and many other reasons mentioned throughout the paper, it is argued and suggested that it makes more sense to take a multimodal approach to the teaching of economics.