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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a major trend in education. The goal of UDL is to design educational experiences that allow all students to match their unique ways of learning to varied modes of engagement, information representation, and expression of learning. Although UDL originated from disability accommodations in K-12 settings, its proponents now claim that it can increase learning for all students in all settings. The strong claims made about UDL warrant critical analysis. UDL shares problematic similarities in theory, operationalization, and research with the discredited concept of learning styles. No strong research evidence exists that either approach increases learning. Research on both approaches is hampered by inadequate operationalization. Both learning styles and UDL emphasize diversity in learning over universal learning principles and hypothesize that matching instruction to students’ unique way of learning leads to increased learning. Justifications for both approaches rely on overgeneralizations of neuroscience research. Although UDL shows promise as an educational framework, its proponents need to learn from the flaws of learning styles and follow a more scientifically sound path forward. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)
Via Peter Mellow
