The word "VARK" was launched in 1987 through work done at Lincoln University by Neil Fleming. The seminal publication appeared in 1992 in the following publication and should be cited as such:
Fleming, N.D. and Mills, C. (1992), Not Another Inventory, Rather a Catalyst for Reflection, To Improve the Academy, Vol. 11, 1992., page 137.
This preference includes the depiction of information in maps, spider diagrams, charts, graphs, flow charts, labelled diagrams, and all the symbolic arrows, circles, hierarchies and other devices, that instructors use to represent what could have been presented in words. It could have been called Graphic (G) as that better explains what it covers. It does NOT include movies, videos or PowerPoint. It does include designs, whitespace, patterns, shapes and the different formats that are used to highlight and convey infomation.
This perceptual mode describes a preference for information that is "heard or spoken." Students with this modality report that they learn best from lectures, tutorials, tapes, group discussion, email, using mobile phones, speaking, web chat and talking things through. It includes talking out loud as well as talking to yourself. Often people with this prefernce want to sort things out by speaking, rather than sorting things out and then speaking.
This preference is for information displayed as words. Not surprisingly, many academics have a strong preference for this modality. This preference emphasises text-based input and output - reading and writing in all its forms. People who prefer this modality are often addicted to PowerPoint, the Internet, lists, filofaxes, dictionaries, thesauri,quotations and words, words, words...
Life is multimodal. There are seldom instances where one mode is used, or is sufficient, so we have a four-part VARK profile. That is why the VARK questionnaire gives you four scores. Those who prefer many modes almost equally are of two types. There are those who are context specific who choose a single mode to suit the occasion or situation. There are others who are not satisfied until they have had input (or output) in all of their preferred modes. They take longer to gather information from each mode and, as a result, they often have a deeper and broader understanding.
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