learning styles essays

Center for Teaching

Learning styles, what are learning styles, why are they so popular.

The term  learning styles is widely used to describe how learners gather, sift through, interpret, organize, come to conclusions about, and “store” information for further use.  As spelled out in VARK (one of the most popular learning styles inventories), these styles are often categorized by sensory approaches:   v isual, a ural, verbal [ r eading/writing], and k inesthetic.  Many of the models that don’t resemble the VARK’s sensory focus are reminiscent of Felder and Silverman’s Index of Learning Styles , with a continuum of descriptors for how learners process and organize information:  active-reflective, sensing-intuitive, verbal-visual, and sequential-global.

There are well over 70 different learning styles schemes (Coffield, 2004), most of which are supported by “a thriving industry devoted to publishing learning-styles tests and guidebooks” and “professional development workshops for teachers and educators” (Pashler, et al., 2009, p. 105).

Despite the variation in categories, the fundamental idea behind learning styles is the same: that each of us has a specific learning style (sometimes called a “preference”), and we learn best when information is presented to us in this style.  For example, visual learners would learn any subject matter best if given graphically or through other kinds of visual images, kinesthetic learners would learn more effectively if they could involve bodily movements in the learning process, and so on.  The message thus given to instructors is that “optimal instruction requires diagnosing individuals’ learning style[s] and tailoring instruction accordingly” (Pashler, et al., 2009, p. 105).

Despite the popularity of learning styles and inventories such as the VARK, it’s important to know that there is no evidence to support the idea that matching activities to one’s learning style improves learning .  It’s not simply a matter of “the absence of evidence doesn’t mean the evidence of absence.”  On the contrary, for years researchers have tried to make this connection through hundreds of studies.

In 2009, Psychological Science in the Public Interest commissioned cognitive psychologists Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Doug Rohrer, and Robert Bjork to evaluate the research on learning styles to determine whether there is credible evidence to support using learning styles in instruction.  They came to a startling but clear conclusion:  “Although the literature on learning styles is enormous,” they “found virtually no evidence” supporting the idea that “instruction is best provided in a format that matches the preference of the learner.”  Many of those studies suffered from weak research design, rendering them far from convincing.  Others with an effective experimental design “found results that flatly contradict the popular” assumptions about learning styles (p. 105). In sum,

“The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing” (p. 117).

Pashler and his colleagues point to some reasons to explain why learning styles have gained—and kept—such traction, aside from the enormous industry that supports the concept.  First, people like to identify themselves and others by “type.” Such categories help order the social environment and offer quick ways of understanding each other.  Also, this approach appeals to the idea that learners should be recognized as “unique individuals”—or, more precisely, that differences among students should be acknowledged —rather than treated as a number in a crowd or a faceless class of students (p. 107). Carried further, teaching to different learning styles suggests that “ all people have the potential to learn effectively and easily if only instruction is tailored to their individual learning styles ” (p. 107).

There may be another reason why this approach to learning styles is so widely accepted. They very loosely resemble the concept of metacognition , or the process of thinking about one’s thinking.  For instance, having your students describe which study strategies and conditions for their last exam worked for them and which didn’t is likely to improve their studying on the next exam (Tanner, 2012).  Integrating such metacognitive activities into the classroom—unlike learning styles—is supported by a wealth of research (e.g., Askell Williams, Lawson, & Murray-Harvey, 2007; Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Butler & Winne, 1995; Isaacson & Fujita, 2006; Nelson & Dunlosky, 1991; Tobias & Everson, 2002).

Importantly, metacognition is focused on planning, monitoring, and evaluating any kind of thinking about thinking and does nothing to connect one’s identity or abilities to any singular approach to knowledge.  (For more information about metacognition, see CFT Assistant Director Cynthia Brame’s “ Thinking about Metacognition ” blog post, and stay tuned for a Teaching Guide on metacognition this spring.)

There is, however, something you can take away from these different approaches to learning—not based on the learner, but instead on the content being learned .  To explore the persistence of the belief in learning styles, CFT Assistant Director Nancy Chick interviewed Dr. Bill Cerbin, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and former Carnegie Scholar with the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.  He points out that the differences identified by the labels “visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and reading/writing” are more appropriately connected to the nature of the discipline:

“There may be evidence that indicates that there are some ways to teach some subjects that are just better than others , despite the learning styles of individuals…. If you’re thinking about teaching sculpture, I’m not sure that long tracts of verbal descriptions of statues or of sculptures would be a particularly effective way for individuals to learn about works of art. Naturally, these are physical objects and you need to take a look at them, you might even need to handle them.” (Cerbin, 2011, 7:45-8:30 )

Pashler and his colleagues agree: “An obvious point is that the optimal instructional method is likely to vary across disciplines” (p. 116). In other words, it makes disciplinary sense to include kinesthetic activities in sculpture and anatomy courses, reading/writing activities in literature and history courses, visual activities in geography and engineering courses, and auditory activities in music, foreign language, and speech courses.  Obvious or not, it aligns teaching and learning with the contours of the subject matter, without limiting the potential abilities of the learners.

• Askell-Williams, H., Lawson, M. & Murray, Harvey, R. (2007). ‘ What happens in my university classes that helps me to learn?’: Teacher education students’ instructional metacognitive knowledge. International Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning , 1. 1-21.
• Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L. & Cocking, R. R., (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school (Expanded Edition). Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
• Butler, D. L., & Winne, P. H. (1995) Feedback and self-regulated learning: A theoretical synthesis . Review of Educational Research , 65, 245-281.
• Cerbin, William. (2011). Understanding learning styles: A conversation with Dr. Bill Cerbin .  Interview with Nancy Chick. UW Colleges Virtual Teaching and Learning Center .
• Coffield, F., Moseley, D., Hall, E., & Ecclestone, K. (2004). Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning. A systematic and critical review . London: Learning and Skills Research Centre.
• Isaacson, R. M. & Fujita, F. (2006). Metacognitive knowledge monitoring and self-regulated learning: Academic success and reflections on learning . Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning , 6, 39-55.
• Nelson, T.O. & Dunlosky, J. (1991). The delayed-JOL effect: When delaying your judgments of learning can improve the accuracy of your metacognitive monitoring. Psychological Science , 2, 267-270.
• Pashler, Harold, McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R.  (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence . Psychological Science in the Public Interest . 9.3 103-119.
• Tobias, S., & Everson, H. (2002). Knowing what you know and what you don’t: Further research on metacognitive knowledge monitoring . College Board Report No. 2002-3 . College Board, NY.

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Overview of VARK Learning Styles

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Aron Janssen, MD is board certified in child, adolescent, and adult psychiatry and is the vice chair of child and adolescent psychiatry Northwestern University.

Sam Edwards / Getty Images

VARK Learning Styles

• Find Your Style
• Kinesthetic

Why It Matters

Frequently asked questions.

Learning styles are a popular concept in psychology and education and are intended to identify how people learn best. VARK learning styles suggest that there are four main types of learners: visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic.

The idea that students learn best when teaching methods and school activities match their learning styles, strengths, and preferences grew in popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. However, most evidence suggests that personal learning preferences have little to no actual influence on learning outcomes.

While the existing research has found that matching teaching methods to learning styles has no influence on educational outcomes, the concept of learning styles remains extremely popular.

There are many different ways of categorizing learning styles , but Neil Fleming's VARK model is one of the most popular. Fleming introduced an inventory in 1987 that was designed to help students and others learn more about their individual learning preferences.

According to the VARK model, learners are identified by whether they have a preference for:

• Visual learning (pictures, movies, diagrams)
• Auditory learning (music, discussion, lectures)
• Reading and writing (making lists, reading textbooks, taking notes)
• Kinesthetic learning (movement, experiments, hands-on activities)

The VARK model refers to the four sensory modalities that describe different learning preferences. The model suggests that these modalities reflect how students learn best.

What Type of Learner Are You?

In order to identify which type of learner people are, Fleming developed a self-report inventory that posed a series of situations. Respondents select the answers that best match their preferred approach to learning.

Imagine that you are learning how to perform a new physical skill such as riding a bike or dancing a certain style of dance. In which way would you learn this skill the best?

• Look at pictures of people performing the skill. (Visual)
• Listen to an expert explain how to do the task. (Auditory)
• Read about how to perform the task in a book. (Reading/Writing)
• Watch someone else perform the skill and then trying it yourself. (Kinesthetic)

Visual Learners

Visual learners learn best by seeing. Graphic displays such as charts, diagrams, illustrations, handouts, and videos are all helpful learning tools for visual learners.

Visual learners prefer this type of learning would rather see information presented in a visual rather than in written form.

Do you think you might be a visual learner? Then consider the following questions:

• Are art, beauty, and aesthetics important to you?
• Does visualizing information in your mind help you remember it better?
• Do you have to see information in order to remember it?
• Do you pay close attention to body language ?

If you can answer yes to most of these questions, chances are good that you have a visual learning style. You may find it helpful to incorporate things like pictures and graphs when you are learning new information.

Aural Learners

Aural (or auditory) learners learn best by hearing information. They tend to get a great deal out of lectures and are good at remembering things they are told.

Are you an auditory learner? Consider the following questions:

• Do you create songs to help remember information?
• Does reading out loud help you remember information better?
• Do you prefer to listen to class lectures rather than reading from the textbook?
• Would you prefer to listen to a recording of your class lectures or a podcast rather than going over your class notes?

If you answered yes to most of these questions, then you are probably an auditory learner. You might find things like audiobooks and podcasts helpful for learning new things.

Reading and Writing Learners

Reading and writing learners prefer to take in information that is displayed as words and text. Could you be a reading and writing learner? Read through the following questions and think about whether they might apply to you.

• Do you enjoy making lists, reading definitions, and creating presentations?
• Do you find reading your textbook to be a great way to learn new information?
• Do you take a lot of notes during class and while reading textbooks?
• Do you prefer it when teachers make use of overheads and handouts?

If you answered yes to these questions, it is likely that you have a strong preference for the reading and writing style of learning. You might find it helpful to write down information in order to help you learn and remember it.

Kinesthetic Learners

Kinesthetic (or tactile) learners learn best by touching and doing. Hands-on experience is important for kinesthetic learners.

Not sure if you're a kinesthetic learner? Answer these questions to find out:

• Are you good at applied activities such as painting, cooking, mechanics, sports, and woodworking?
• Do you enjoy performing tasks that involve directly manipulating objects and materials?
• Do you have to actually practice doing something in order to learn it?
• Is it difficult for you to sit still for long periods of time?

If you responded yes to these questions, then you are most likely a kinesthetic learner. Taking classes that give you practical, hands-on experience may be helpful when you want to acquire a new skill.

The validity of the VARK model as well as other learning style theories has been questioned and criticized extensively. Some critics have suggested that labeling students as having one specific learning style can actually be a hindrance to learning.

One large-scale look at learning style models suggested that the instruments designed to assess individual learning styles were questionable.  

The VARK model remains fairly popular among both students and educators despite these criticisms. Students may feel drawn to a particular learning style. Others may find that their learning preferences lie somewhere in the middle, such as finding both visual and auditory learning equally appealing.

People might find that understanding their own learning preferences can be helpful. If you know that visual learning appeals to you most, using visual study strategies in conjunction with other learning methods might help you remember and enjoy your studies more.

If no single learning preference calls out to you or you change preferences based on the situation or the type of information you are learning, you probably have what is known as a multimodal style .

For example, you might rely on your reading and writing preferences when you are dealing with a class that requires a great deal of book reading and note-taking, such as a history of psychology course. During an art class, you might depend more on your visual and kinesthetic preferences as you take in pictorial information and learn new techniques.

The four VARK learning styles are visual learners, aural learners, reading and writing learners, and kinesthetic learners.

According to some data, the most common is a multimodal learning style referred to as VARK Type Two, which involves exhibiting a range of learning preferences. People with this learning style tend to collect information more slowly and take time to make decisions.

In terms of single preferences, kinesthetic is by far the most common, accounting for 22.8% of respondents.

Pashler H, Mcdaniel M, Rohrer D, Bjork R. Learning styles: concepts and evidence . Psychol Sci Public Interest . 2008;9(3):105-19. doi:10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01038.x

VARK Learn Limited. VARK research - what do we know about VARK ?

Fleming N. Introduction to Vark .

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Discover Your Learning Style – Comprehensive Guide on Different Learning Styles

People differ in the way they absorb, process, and store new information and master new skills. Natural and habitual, this way does not change with teaching methods or learning content. This is known as the Learning Style.

By discovering and better understanding learning styles, one can employ techniques to improve the rate and quality of learning. Even if one has never heard the term “learning style” before, they are likely to have some idea of what their learning style is.

For instance, one may learn better through DIY videos instead of reading manuals or pick up things faster by listening to audiobooks instead of sitting down to read. These preferences point to one’s learning style.

How can learning style help in the classroom?

Students can have a single dominant learning style or a combination of styles, which could also vary based on circumstances. While no learning style (or a mix of them) is right or wrong, knowing one’s style can significantly enhance learning.

Research has shown that a mismatch between learning style and teaching can affect students’ learning and behavior quality in class. Studies have found that good learning depends on the teaching materials used, which must align with students’ learning styles.

In recent years, there has been a big push in education on how teachers can better meet students’ needs. Learning style has proven very effective in achieving this. It helps teachers understand how students absorb information and teach effectively.

One study found that over 90% of teachers believed in the learning style idea.

Often, teachers have a lot on their plates, and adjusting instruction to suit different learning styles can sound overwhelming. However, once they master how to appeal to all learners, life in the classroom becomes much easier.

This guide will help you understand various learning styles and how teachers can use them to alter instructions and help students learn more effectively.

This improves classroom management and makes for happier students. The chatty student who constantly interrupts will finally find a positive place in the classroom. The quiet girl who knows all the answers but never raises her hand will feel confident sharing her knowledge.

How can learning style help parents?

As a parent, knowing your child’s learning style helps you find activities and resources tailored to their specific learning styles. This allows you to better connect with them and provide the support they need, which also improves relationships.

Knowing learning styles is also helpful beyond educational settings. It helps you understand how those around you learn—at work, in families, in relationships, or in other settings.

Theory Of Learning Styles

The study of learning styles began in 1910 , and formal learning style assessment instruments were developed for academics in the 1970s. By the 1980s, the VAK model, which stands for Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic, had gained popularity in the mainstream media.

Thanks to the Internet, VAK became freely available to teachers for assessment by 2000. Later, another dominant style, reading/writing (R), was added to the VAK model, which expanded it to the VARK model.

The VARK model

The VARK learning style model has been adjusted to include four learning modes:

• Visual (spacial) learners learn best by seeing
• Auditory (aural) learners learn best by hearing
• Reading/writing learners learn best by reading and writing
• Kinesthetic (physical) learners learn best by moving and doing

A short questionnaire is used to identify what a learner prefers to use when taking in, processing, and outputting information.

VARK helps explain why it can sometimes be frustrating to sit in a classroom and not get what’s being taught. It also explains why some students learn well from one teacher but struggle to learn from another.

As a student, if you have experienced feelings like this, they are more likely to originate from an incompatibility with your learning style.

According to Neil Fleming and David Baume , who developed VARK, teachers should understand how students learn, but it’s even more important that students themselves know how they learn.

By identifying their own learning process, students can identify and test strategies that significantly improve learning efficiency. According to Fleming and Baume,

“VARK above all is designed to be a starting place for a conversation among teachers and learners about learning. It can also be a catalyst for staff development – thinking about strategies for teaching different groups can lead to more, and appropriate, variety of learning and teaching.”

This kind of thinking is known as metacognition , which refers to an awareness and understanding of one’s thought processes and how to regulate them. Discovering your own learning style without engaging in metacognition would be impossible.

Learning styles can also be multimodal —some have one dominant style, while others combine several learning styles.

Various learning theories, in addition to VAK and VARK, have been developed over time . While the labels used in each theory differ, the learning styles they define often overlap.

Memletics is another theory that was created in 2003 by Sean Whiteley . It expands upon the VAK model by introducing seven learning styles:

As shown, Memletics adds four more learning styles (Verbal, Logical, Social, and Solitary) to the three learning styles defined in the VAK model. However, it leaves out “Reading/Writing,” added when VAK expanded to VARK.

Due to the nature of these categories, there can be an overlap in learning styles defined in Memletics. Take two solitary learners, for instance. While both learn best in solitary situations, one may learn using logic, while the other may learn by seeing (Visual).

In a study on learning styles, Aranya Srijongjai noted that according to the Memletics model, everyone has a mix of learning styles, and learning styles are not fixed, so instructors should also accommodate other types of learning styles by providing diverse learning environments.

They should vary activities so that students learn in their preferred style and have a chance to develop other styles. Matching and mismatching learning styles and instructional methods will complement the student’s learning performance and create more flexible learners in the long run.

As Srijongjai suggests, students and teachers should not consider learning styles as boxes into which students can be placed. They are just one small piece of the overall puzzle in a student’s learning process.

No matter what learning style theory appeals to you the most, knowing your style helps make learning easier and more successful. Most learners will have at least one dominant style in the VARK theory.

This guide will offer information and advice to teachers, students, and parents to help them understand why and how people learn the way they do.

For each learning style, we have included suggestions for career choices, which in no way are meant to be limiting, but they can be helpful. If you are a visual learner but feel pulled toward one of the fields listed in the auditory learner section, by all means, pursue your passion.

These suggestions merely show what careers a person with a particular style might gravitate toward and where they are likely to excel with minimal effort.

Understanding your learning style is helpful, but again, you should also be careful not to put yourself in a box and define yourself by your learning style. The key is understanding how you learn and avoiding getting caught up in labels and classifications.

Take what insight you can, but don’t let it overcome your thoughts about yourself, as you may very well lie at the intersection of the “standard” learning styles:

Visual Learners

Do you ever remember taking a test in school and thinking, “I don’t remember the answer, but I remember I had it highlighted pink in my notes”? If the answer is yes, then you might be a visual learner.

Visual learners remember and learn best from what they see. This doesn’t necessarily have to be restricted to pictures and videos. They do well with spatial reasoning, charts, graphs, etc. Visual learners often “see” words as pictures or objects in their heads.

Visual learners use their right brain to process information. The human brain processes visual information much faster than plain text. Some reports claim that images are processed 60,000 times faster than text .

As a visual learner, you can quickly take in and retain a lot of information because you prefer this processing method that humans are already very good at.

Visual learners prefer using maps, outlines, diagrams, charts, graphs, designs, and patterns when studying and learning. They are more likely to organize their notes into visual patterns or separate their pages of notes into different sections. Many visual learners also do well by color-coding their notes.

Careers For Visual Learners

Visual learners are often drawn to and do well in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). Career options include Data Analytics & Visualization, Graphics Design, Photography, Architecture, Construction, Copy Editing, Interior Design, Physics, Advertising, Engineering, and Surgery.

A Note On Visual Learners For Teachers

Sometimes, students who are visual learners might stare out the window or doodle in their notes. If this is the case, let them do it. Locking their eyes constantly on you can be too visually stimulating for these students.

Sometimes, it’s the flower that they draw next to their notes that helps them remember the point by bringing out a visual connection.

It’s also easy for visual learners to get overwhelmed by a lot of visual input. If the classroom setting is chaotic, with many students moving around, it might be too much for these students to take in.

The design of a classroom is very important to visual learners. Clutter or too many posters adorning the walls can easily overwhelm their minds and processing.

Some visual learners may find it helpful to pay careful attention to your movements. They might even remember the silly hand motion you made or how you pointed to a country on the map. Keeping this in mind when delivering your lessons can be very effective.

Lesson Ideas To Help Visual Learners

Draw text and words.

Make it a habit to write new words and add a few quick context clues (e.g., putting the part of speech in brackets or underling the stressed syllable). Pick out a portion of the text with especially vivid imagery and instruct students to draw a picture of what the writing describes. This will help visual learners read and understand the text better.

Visual learners tend to color code things naturally. It can be helpful if you, as a teacher, also color code your notes as you write or post them. You could, for example, designate roles for certain areas of the board and use colors to organize information during the lesson.

Or, for homework or in-class assignments, you could have students annotate/read actively and use different colors for different things you want them to look for. For example, they could highlight dates in blue and names in yellow.

Use charts and graphs

Create charts and graphs to help students visualize information. While math and science subjects typically provide the ideal setting, they can be used in other disciplines as well.

For instance, in a social science class, students could track local election participation rates over ten years and create line graphs to visualize trends. This will give them a deeper understanding of civic involvement dynamics in their community.

Such assignments engage visual learners and allow them to recall information more easily, organize concepts, and articulate their thoughts more easily. Try:

• Venn Diagrams (that represent comparisons and contrasts)
• Timelines (to visually represent a series of events)
• Inverted Triangles (that go from broad topics to more specific ones).
• Story or Essay Planners (that guide students through the steps necessary to complete tasks)
• Charts to list word families – add columns for verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and nouns and fill them as words come up. (e.g., engage, engaging, engagingly, engagement)

Use posters and flashcards

As a project or class assignment, ask students to make posters illustrating key concepts. Students can even present their posters to the class – which would benefit auditory learners. Display these posters on the wall to help drive home important topics.

Flashcards also provide visual cues to young learners and can be used to teach various concepts. To build vocabulary, for example, the word “yummy” may be drawn as swirls of an ice cream cone that helps visual learners remember.

A number of classic games can also be designed using flashcards that help visual learners interact visually and learn better.

Draw reasoning

In math, teach students to draw out their reasoning. For example, instead of verbally explaining how to add 3 and 5, you could create a sketch that depicts two baskets with 3 and 5 apples each. Counting all the apples in your drawing visually demonstrates that 3 plus 5 equals 8, making it easier to understand.

Use gestures

Be aware of your body language when you teach. Including gestures and hand motions when you speak will help visual learners pay attention and make connections.

Auditory Learners

Do you sometimes talk to yourself when thinking hard, studying, or trying to organize something? If that sounds like you, you’re likely an auditory learner.

Auditory learners learn best by carefully hearing and listening. This can include listening to external sources and hearing themselves talk. They will likely volunteer to answer questions and actively participate in classroom discussions.

Auditory learners have a great advantage in the classroom because they are not afraid to speak their minds and easily get answers to their questions. Consequently, they process information very easily, right there in the classroom.

In contrast, reading/writing learners might not even realize they have a question until they’ve had time to go back and process their notes.

For auditory learners, any form of listening or speaking is the most efficient learning method. This can include lectures, audiobooks, discussions, and verbal processing. They are also typically good at storytelling and public speaking.

Many auditory learners prefer studying and working in groups because they prefer to talk through the information, which makes them “social learners,” as per Memletics.

Careers For Auditory Learners

Any job that requires a lot of listening and/or speaking will likely be an excellent fit for an auditory learner. Some career fields to consider include law, psychiatry or therapy, guidance counseling, customer service, sales, speech pathology, journalism, and teaching.

A Note On Auditory Learners For Teachers

Just like visual learners, even auditory learners might stare into space, but for a different reason. Since they process information best by listening, they don’t need to look at notes or PowerPoint very often. While this may seem like they are zoning out or not paying attention, it’s generally not the case.

If you’ve ever caught a student staring off into space and asked them a question, thinking you’ve caught them off guard, only to get the perfect answer, you’ve likely found a very auditory learner.

These students also tend to get chatty during class. This can be great when trying to get a lively class discussion or debate going but not when you need the class to listen intently.

Before this frustrates and angers you, remember that this is how their brain works and learns. As much as you can and as much as is practical based on the subject, try to facilitate discussions and play into this rather than squashing it.

Remember that auditory learners may really struggle with written and visual information.

These are the students who can answer every single question you ask in class and then score just 60% on an exam that tests the same information. If you suspect that a student who bombed a test actually knows much more, give them a chance to answer those questions verbally.

Lesson Ideas To Help Auditory Learners

For obvious reasons, audiobooks are perfect for auditory learners. Give these students the option to listen from an audiobook—this can be effective with both novels and textbooks.

Socratic Seminar

A Socratic seminar is a student-led discussion based on a text in which the teacher asks open-ended questions to begin with. Students listen closely to each other’s comments, think critically for themselves, and articulate their thoughts and responses to others’ thoughts.

They learn to work cooperatively and to question intelligently and civilly. Discussions usually occur in a circle, and the atmosphere is laid-back, encouraging every student to join the conversation.

Auditory learners often lead such discussions. It gives them a chance to shine and be rewarded for talking, which usually gets them in trouble otherwise.

Teacher Kelly Gallagher offers a great handout called Trace the Conversation that can help auditory and visual learners with Socratic seminars. There are many ways to conduct Socratic Seminars; the National Council of Teachers of English has a great explanation .

Speeches, the often hated but necessary school assignment many students dread, are a favorite of auditory learners. When it comes to speeches, auditory learners feel in their element. Speeches can be short and impromptu or long and planned, and they can be on any subject.

Recorded notes

You can either record yourself speaking or permit your students to record lectures so they can listen later. You can also encourage students to record themselves reading their notes.

Text to speech

Students can do this independently, but they might need your prompting or feel better about doing it if you permit them. Document processors like Microsoft Word and Google Docs have text-to-speech and speech-to-text embedded as standard.

Students can, for instance, use speech-to-text to capture their thoughts when writing essays. Text-to-speech can also be beneficial for proofreading and catching errors.

A structured debate is beneficial for auditory learners to get their ideas across. It can be done at all grade levels and in all disciplines. Here is a great resource for some debate ideas and different debate formats for different grade levels.

Reading/Writing Learners

Do you tend to zone out when people talk to you or when you hear a lecture? Would you instead read the transcript or get the information from a book? Then, you’re probably a reading/writing learner. You learn best by reading and writing.

Reading/writing learners often relate to the famous Flannery O’Connor’s quote: “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”

For these learners, verbal input can often go into one ear and out from the other without much effect. Seeing notes on the board or a PowerPoint presentation is very important to them, as is taking notes.

These students learn best from books, lists, notes, journals, dictionaries, etc. They can also intuitively help themselves learn by rewriting notes, using flashcards, adding notes to pictures or diagrams, choosing a physical book over an audiobook, and using closed video captions.

Careers For Reading/Writing Learners

Writing is a common and obvious career choice for reading/writing learners, but if this is your learning style, you’re definitely not limited to writing. Editing, journalism, public relations, law, teaching and education, marketing, advertising, researching, translating, and economic advising are all excellent career choices.

A Note On Reading/Writing Learners For Teachers

Reading/writing learners are often your typical “good students.” However, they can really struggle to learn from lectures or completely auditory methods. They may not respond well to class discussions and need more time to process what they hear.

Help them by giving them time to write down their thoughts before asking them to share out loud. This will reduce their stress and allow them to process their thoughts.

As a teacher, you will likely encounter students who need more time to understand a concept, even after you have finished explaining it. These students are most likely reading/writing learners.

Knowing their learning style makes it easier to be more patient and provide them with the necessary support. They sometimes struggle to take notes because they try to write down everything you say. Help them by working with them to pull out the most important parts of your lecture and paraphrase what they hear.

Lesson Ideas To Help Reading/Writing Learners

No matter what the lesson is about, providing handouts highlighting the most important information is one of the best things you can do to help reading/writing learners. It’s also important to give them enough time to write detailed notes.

Essays and reading assignments

These simple assignments work best for reading/writing learners. This is why they often thrive in the traditional classroom setting.

Vocabulary stories

Have students create stories or plays to make their vocabulary words more fun and exciting. This can be done in any subject area that has vocabulary words.

You can give students a topic or let them be creative, but all they have to do is write a story containing x number of vocabulary words. You can also extend this activity to help kinesthetic learners by having students act out their stories for the class.

Think, pair, share

Reading/writing learners often struggle with sharing their thoughts out loud. They ace their tests but freeze when you call on them in the class. Think-pair-share can help give them the confidence they need to verbalize their thoughts and is suitable for most age groups in almost any subject area.

First, ask students an open-ended question and give them time to think silently and write their answers. Then, have students pair up in small groups to share their answers. Then, open the discussion to the whole class.

When you ask a question and want students to respond right away, you’ll likely get answers only from the auditory learners—they are the quickest at verbal processing.

With think-pair-share, the reading/writing learners get the time they need to process. In that time, they develop the confidence to construct a verbal response and are very likely to respond.

Kinesthetic Learners

Are you the first to stand up and volunteer to demonstrate an experiment for everyone else? Do you need to change the oil rather than look at a diagram to learn how to do it? If the answer is yes, then you are most likely a kinesthetic learner.

The root word “kines” means motion and a kinesthetic learner learns best by “going through the motion” or doing the task. It’s much easier for them to internalize the information when they are actively moving their body and combining that with what they are learning.

These students tend to shine in demonstrations and experiments. They also learn best from seeing something firsthand, like watching live videos and going on field trips.

Combining a physical motion, such as fidgeting, with a piece of information can help them learn better. They are likelier to use active gesturing and “talk with their hands.”

Careers For Kinesthetic Learners

Any career that allows physical activity and requires movement is right up the alley of a kinesthetic learner. These are the ones who often use the phrase “I don’t sit well.”

Kinesthetic learners typically don’t thrive well at desk jobs. Good career options for such learners include physical or occupational therapy, nursing, dance, theatre, music, automotive technology, welding, on-site engineering jobs, carpentry, agriculture, environmental science, forestry, and marine biology.

A Note On Kinesthetic Learners For Teachers

Just because you see a student fidgeting or being antsy, it doesn’t mean they aren’t paying attention or are bored. Their brain craves that movement to help them make connections.

There’s no need to force such students to sit entirely still as long as they aren’t distracting others in the classroom. Try to connect movement to the concepts you’re teaching as much as possible. Kinesthetic learners need to move, and they can benefit from active brain breaks.

Do your best to keep them active and allow movement in your classroom. If you notice a student with a glazed-over look, take a 30-second break from the lesson and have the entire class stand up, stretch, or do some jumping jacks.

Or you could ask your kinesthetic learner to run a quick errand to the office.

As students, kinesthetic learners often get punished for trying to move and follow their natural learning style. The more you can find ways to reward them for their learning style, the more engaged they will become.

Lesson Ideas To Help Kinesthetic Learners

Labs and experiments.

While labs and experiments are standard in science classes, they can also be successfully implemented in the curriculum of other subjects to benefit kinesthetic learners.

For example, an elementary math lesson could involve measuring each student’s height and creating problems based on the measurements. Geometry, for instance, could be taught using hands-on activities and tangible objects, like clay or building blocks, for better comprehension.

Field trips

With tightening school budgets, it can be hard to plan educational field trips, and that’s understandable. However, field trips need not have to be major events.

An art project, for example, could involve taking students outside and having them draw or photograph what they see. An English lesson could include a nature walk during which students journal or write a story about their little field trip.

Physical props

Use practical and/or memorable props; for example, when teaching a history lesson, dressing in the attire of the era you are teaching about will greatly impact kinesthetic learners. If you’re an anatomy teacher, consider using a model skeleton or demonstrating with your body as a helpful visual aid.

Take a stand

This activity is easy to set up and appeals to both kinesthetic and auditory learners. It requires you to prepare a series of questions that students can agree or disagree with.

For instance, if your students read “To Kill A Mockingbird,” your questions could revolve around racism. (Note: when tackling a sensitive subject such as racism, make sure you know your students and their maturity level)

Have signs on either side of your classroom indicating “agree” and “disagree.” Read through each question and have students move to the side of the room that fits their beliefs. Once there, they can discuss their thoughts with the group that follows their beliefs, and then you can open the discussion to the whole class.

This works well for literature and history lessons. Instead of reading silently, assign students parts and have them act out the story.

Tableaux Vivants

Tableaux Vivants is a time-tested process drama technique that can enhance students’ engagement and comprehension of abstract learning material across the curriculum. It works well in literature and history classrooms and is a great review activity. It is very similar to charades .

It involves breaking students into groups and assigning each group a “scene” – this could be from a work of literature or a scene from history. Each group then works together to create a silent re-enactment consisting of “snapshots” of the scene.

Students pose and pause for 5-10 seconds before moving on to their next pose. Once they have moved through all their poses, the rest of the class guesses what scene they were re-enacting.

Demonstration speeches

Einstein once said: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” Demonstration speeches allow students to explain something they understand well to their peers.

Ask your students to pick a topic, such as how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Ask them to give a speech explaining the process while simultaneously demonstrating it.

The demonstration part appeals most to kinesthetic learners. Since students can choose their topic, it also appeals to all other learners, creating an engaging learning experience.

Logical Learners

If a child is good with numbers and asks many questions, they might be a logical learner. A logical learner has a core need to understand what is being learned. For them, simply memorizing facts is not enough. They thrive on orderly and sequential processes.

Individuals who excel at math and possess strong logical reasoning skills are usually logical learners. They notice patterns quickly and have a keen ability to link information that would seem unrelated to others. Logical learners retain details better by drawing connections after organizing an assortment of information.

As a logical learner, you can maximize your ability to learn by seeking to understand the meaning and reasoning behind the subject you’re studying. Avoid rote memorization.

Explore the links between related subject matter and ensure you understand the details. Use ‘systems thinking’ to better understand the relationship between various parts of a system. This will not only help you understand the bigger picture but also help you understand why each component is important.

Social Learners

Social learners have excellent written and verbal communication skills. They are at ease speaking to others and adept at comprehending other people’s perspectives. For this reason, people frequently seek counsel from them.

Social learners learn best when working with groups and take opportunities to meet individually with teachers.

If you like bouncing ideas off others, prefer working through issues as a group, and thoroughly enjoy working with others, you may be a social learner. Seek opportunities to study with others. If your class doesn’t have formal groups, form one.

Solitary Learners

Solitary learners prefer working by themselves in private settings. They avoid relying on others for help when solving problems or studying and frequently analyze their learning preferences and methods.

Solitary learners tend to waste a lot of time on a complex problem before seeking assistance. If you are a solitary learner, you must consciously recognize this limitation and try to seek help more often/sooner when stuck.

Generally, solitary learning can be a very effective learning style for students.

Tips to Simultaneously Help Learners of All Types

Lessons tailored to suit multiple learning styles are often the most effective, as they reach and appeal to most students. Another reason they are best suited is because most people have a combination of learning styles.

The activities discussed in this article provide ample opportunities for all types of learners to benefit. As a teacher, if you try to be creative, you can make little tweaks in almost every lesson to reach different learning styles.

Following are some ideas and ways by which to reach all four VARK learning styles:

Split your space into multiple stations (or centers) spread throughout the classroom. Break your students into groups so there is a group at every station.

Then, assign activities for each station that focus on a learning style. Have the students rotate with their groups from one station to another.

While the obvious benefit of rotation is that it ensures the activities cover each type of learner’s needs, there is more to it.

Even if you don’t have a center that caters to kinesthetic learners, the simple act of getting up and moving around different stations in the classroom helps them. The same goes for auditory learners; being in small groups and rotating throughout the room encourages discussion.

Give options

Irrespective of what subjects you teach your students, give them options as far as possible. For instance, instead of assigning an essay at the end of a unit, assign a project that can be completed with multiple activities.

Don’t mention which choices align with which learning style—let the students decide. Here is an example of 4 different options for a homework project:

• Write an essay (appeals to reading/writing learners)
• Record a podcast or TED talk (appeals to auditory learners)
• Film a video (appeals to kinesthetic learners)
• Create a poster or multimedia project (appeals to visual learners)

Quite often, students will naturally gravitate toward the option that best suits their learning style.

Allow students to use headphones when working independently in class. This helps cut out distractions for most learning types. Particularly for auditory learners, it can help make connections between what they hear and what they’re learning, which can be very helpful for them when they need to work silently.

Technology has made great strides and deep inroads into education. Several apps and websites can help students in various ways. Here is a list of apps for elementary math that could appeal to all four learning styles.

Games that include pictures and sound can help visual and auditory learners. Reading explanations and lessons on apps helps reading/writing learners. Physically manipulating and touching a device helps kinesthetic learners.

A quick online search will reveal several beneficial websites and apps for almost any discipline.

Final Words

There is no right or wrong when it comes to learning styles; they are simply names and categories assigned to how people’s brains process information.

It is generally easier for those with a dominant reading/writing style to succeed in a traditional academic setting, thus securing the “good student” label. However, education has come a long way, and schools and teachers can cater to various styles.

As a teacher, it’s important to remember that every student is unique. Even two visual learners might differ significantly in terms of what works for them. The best approach is to learn about and understand each student’s unique educational requirements.

After all, students are human beings with unique needs and feelings; teachers who remember this can approach them empathetically.

If you are a student interested in knowing about your learning style, you can begin by taking the VARK questionnaire . Having your students take the questionnaire is a good idea if you’re a teacher. Not only will you discover your student’s learning styles, but they will also be able to identify which techniques work best for them.

Remember, learning style is only a partial explanation of a student’s preferred way of learning. It is never the complete picture. These styles change over time, and every student can have differing degrees of inclination toward a given style.

However, regardless of your position in education, recognizing both your own learning styles and those of others around you can be highly beneficial.

Similar Posts:

• 35 of the BEST Educational Apps for Teachers (Updated 2024)
• 20 Huge Benefits of Using Technology in the Classroom
• 15 Learning Theories in Education (A Complete Summary)

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Article • 14 min read

Learning Styles

The models, myths and misconceptions – and what they mean for your learning.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

It's tempting to try to pin down one "perfect" way of learning. But it can also be dangerous.

Everyone's approach to learning is based on a complex mix of strengths and preferences. And we absorb and apply new concepts, skills and information in different ways at different times.

So, however helpful it would be to find out how each of us does it "best," there are many reasons why even asking the question is far from straightforward.

After all, how we learn depends a great deal on what we're learning. And our preferred learning techniques might not, in fact, be the most useful. Despite this, many scientists, psychologists and education experts have tried to identify distinct, innate "learning styles."

But serious doubts have arisen about some of the most popular models – especially the ways in which they have been applied. There are even concerns that the "labels" they produce might actually limit people's learning.

In this article, we look at how the key learning styles theories were developed, and explore their intentions and limitations. We also show why it's still valuable to understand your personal approach to learning – even if there's no single, "magic bullet" solution for any of us.

What Are Learning Styles?

The notion that everyone has their own learning style became popular in the 1970s. It's an attractive thought: if each of us could identify one, "ideal" approach to learning, we'd be able to focus on it – and be consistently successful.

What's more, by understanding other people's needs, we'd know how best to support them to learn. It could revolutionize education, training and L&D, and help all of us to reach our full potential as learners.

Before we explain why many experts now have little faith in learning styles, let's explore how some of the original ideas came about.

Learn more about the theories behind learning styles – and their drawbacks and limitations.

Different Learning Styles: 6 Influential Models and Theories

1. david kolb and experiential learning.

David Kolb's model of "experiential learning" stated that we learn continually, and, in the process, build particular strengths. Those strengths were said to give rise to personal preferences, which Kolb described in terms of four learning styles: Accommodating , Converging , Diverging , and Assimilating .

As Kolb saw it, Accommodators were "hands-on" types, keen to learn from real experience.

Convergers were supposed to deal better with abstract ideas, but still liked to end up with concrete results. They understood theories, but wanted to test them out in practice.

Divergers tended to use personal experiences and practical ideas to formulate theories that they could apply more widely.

And Assimilators , according to Kolb, were most comfortable working with abstract concepts. They extended their understanding by developing new theories of their own.

Kolb said that it was beneficial to know which type of learner you were, in order to "play to your strengths." He also believed that educators and trainers could tailor their teaching methods to different people's learning styles.

2. Honey and Mumford's Learning Styles

Peter Honey and Alan Mumford developed Kolb's model by focusing on how learning is used in practice, particularly at work. They identified four new learning styles: Activist , Pragmatist , Reflector , and Theorist – using terms that we might naturally pick to describe ourselves and our colleagues.

To find out more about Kolb's model, and about Honey and Mumford's Learning Styles, see our article on the 4MAT approach to learning.

3. Anthony Gregorc's Mind Styles

Anthony Gregorc and Kathleen Butler went into more detail about how we think, and how this might affect the way we learn.

This theory put us all on a spectrum between concrete and abstract thinking, and between sequential and random ordering of our thoughts.

• Concrete perceptions happen through the senses, while abstract perceptions deal with ideas.
• Sequential thinking arranges information in a logical, linear way, while a random approach is multidirectional and unpredictable.

In Gregorc's model, our strengths and weaknesses in each of these areas determined our individual learning style.

4. 4 Learning Styles (VARK)

Educational psychologist Walter Burke Barbe and his colleagues proposed three "modalities" of learning: Visual , Auditory , and Kinesthetic (movement and touch). These were often referred to simply as VAK.

A variation on the acronym, developed by New Zealand-based teacher Neil D. Fleming, is VARK® , or visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic. You can find out more about both VAK and VARK in our article, VAK Learning Styles .

Visual Learning Style

A visually-dominant learner absorbs and retains information better when it is presented in, for example, pictures, diagrams and charts.

Auditory Learning Style

An auditory-dominant learner prefers listening to what is being presented. They respond best to voices, for example, in a lecture or group discussion. Hearing their own voice repeating something back to a tutor or trainer is also helpful.

Reading/Writing Learning Style

People with a dominant reading-and-writing learning style take in new information best when they read it as words and text. They're often good at summarizing information in written notes.

Kinesthetic Learning Style

A kinesthetic-dominant learner prefers a physical experience. They like a "hands-on" approach and respond well to being able to touch or feel an object or learning prop.

Barbe was clear that everyone had strengths, weaknesses and preferences in each of the VAK modalities. The most effective learning, he said, utilized all three in combination. He said that the mix we achieved depended on many factors, and would likely change over time.

The VAK model was popular and widely applied. But, like some of the earlier models, it became associated with a fixed outlook on learning. Many people took it to mean that learners could be classified by a single modality – as a "visual learner," for example – with little room for maneuver. And there was confusion over whether the VAK definition referred to someone's innate abilities, their personal preferences, or both.

5. The Learning Styles Task Force

In the 1980s, American educationalists were still trying to find out as much as they could about learning styles, to help classroom teachers to achieve the best possible results.

The National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) formed a research "task force," and proposed additional factors that might affect someone's ability to learn. These included the way study was organized, levels of motivation, and even the time of day when learning took place.

They divided learning styles into three categories: Cognitive , Affective and Physiological .

• Cognitive: how we think, how we organize and retain information, and how we learn from our experiences.
• Affective: our attitudes and motivations, and how they impact our approach to learning.
• Physiological: a variety of factors based on our health, well-being, and the environment in which we learn.

6. The Index of Learning Styles™

Various related questionnaires and tests quickly came into use, aimed at helping people to identify their personal learning style. One of the most popular was based on The Index of Learning Styles™ , developed by Dr Richard Felder and Barbara Soloman in the late 1980s.

The questionnaire considered four dimensions: Sensory/Intuitive , Visual/Verbal , Active/Reflective , and Sequential/Global . The theory was that we're all somewhere on a "continuum" for each of them. Neither extreme was said to be "good" or "bad." Instead, we'd do best by drawing on both ends of the spectrum.

Questionnaires like this promised to define anyone's learning style, so that they could address any "imbalances," and learn in the ways that would benefit them most.

Criticisms of Learning Styles

These and other theories about learning styles have become extremely popular and widespread. However, a growing body of research has challenged many of their claims.

Let's look at the four key criticisms that have been leveled against them:

1. The Science Isn't Strong Enough

We may express our preferences about how we learn, but they're not necessarily an accurate reflection of how our brains work. According to neuroscientist Susan Greenfield , the idea that we can be defined as purely visual, auditory or kinesthetic learners is "nonsense." That's because, she says, "humans have evolved to build a picture of the world through our senses working in unison, exploiting the immense interconnectivity that exists in the brain."

A study by Massa and Mayer also found little difference in learning outcomes when they matched their test subjects' preferences (visual or verbal) to the learning materials they were given.

2. Learning Styles Change

Attempts to "diagnose" someone's learning style once and for all will likely fail. As Eileen Carnell and Caroline Lodge explain in their book " Effective Learning ," an individual's learning method will be different in different situations, and likely change over time.

3. Strengths and Preferences Are Not the Same

An influential piece of research published in the Journal of Educational Psychology revealed big differences between people's assessed strengths, and how they actually tackled learning tasks in practice. For example, someone who scores better in tests after hearing the information might still choose to learn by reading – simply because they enjoy that style of learning more.

4. Teaching to Particular Learning Styles Doesn't Work

For psychologist Scott Lilienfeld, the idea that "students learn best when teaching styles are matched to their learning styles" is one of the " 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology ." This, he says, "encourages teachers to teach to students' intellectual strengths rather than their weaknesses," limiting their learning as a result.

Using Learning Styles to Improve Learning

Despite the criticisms we've outlined, some of the ideas that underpin learning styles theories still have value – especially the emphasis on metacognition: "thinking about thinking."

One influential collection of research cast doubt on specific learning styles models, but was still positive about metacognition. And metacognition has been shown to improve educational outcomes – leading the Education Endowment Foundation to recommend it as a key teaching and learning tool.

Analyzing our thinking can help us to plan learning strategies that work for us. It can support us to become more organized in our studies, to use prior knowledge as the foundation for new learning, and to choose effective methods for different learning tasks.

Plus, by examining our strengths and weaknesses, we can make the most of any aspects of learning that "come naturally" and that we enjoy, while also working on the areas that might be holding us back.

If you're eager to improve your personal approach to learning, here are three key steps to take:

1. See the Big Picture

Do everything you can to gain a rounded picture of your learning. Look at all the different reasons why you tend to tackle learning the way you do.

And, when you're in the process of learning, ask yourself why you're doing it a particular way. Is it because it's the most effective for you, or simply because it's what you've always done?

Be wary of definitive judgments. Instead, consider different scenarios, and try to differentiate between how you like to learn, and how you learn best – in a variety of learning situations.

2. Identify Your Strengths

Highlight the types of learning that work best for you, and the conditions for learning that support them. For instance, you might be more of an active learner, who operates best in groups.

Keep doing the things that give the best results, to keep your learning fast and effective – and look for ways to improve them even more.

But also leave room to practice and strengthen any learning behaviors that you find more difficult.

3. Work on Your Weaknesses

You can often improve areas of your learning that are letting you down simply by using them more.

If you feel that you're not confident learning visually, for example, get into the habit of reading the charts and diagrams in an article before grappling with the ideas in the text.

Or, if you're an independent learner by nature, make a point of involving others in your problem-solving from time to time.

Also, actively look for opportunities to try out new ways to learn. You might be surprised about what works – and about the new elements of learning that you enjoy.

How to Help Other People to Learn

Becoming more aware of your own strengths and preferences helps you to appreciate and cater for the diverse ways in which others learn, too.

For example, when you're giving a presentation, chairing a meeting, or leading a training session, avoid leaning too heavily on the approach that you would enjoy yourself.

Remember that some learners will benefit from visual aids, while others will rely on listening to what you say, or on watching your body language. Back up abstract theories with real-life examples. Spend time discussing small details as well as outlining large-scale ideas.

You can't always cater for everyone, but you can better engage your audience by allowing for different approaches to learning. If nothing else, your varied approach will keep people energized and alert!

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the kinesthetic learning style.

A learner with a preference for the kinesthetic learning style prefers a physical experience. They like a "hands-on" approach and respond well to being able to touch or feel an object or learning prop.

Can you have two learning styles?

Yes. Or more than two. Very few people, if any, are completely reliant on one learning style. They may favor, say, visual learning, but still be able to learn by reading and writing.

• "Learning Styles" theories attempted to define people by how they learn – based on individual strengths, personal preferences, and other factors such as motivation and favored learning environment.
• Many different Learning Styles models were developed, but even the most popular ones have now been called into question. The main criticisms are that they are unscientific, inflexible, and ineffective in practice.
• However, it's still worth using metacognition – "thinking about thinking" – to work out what does help you to learn. That way, you can play to your strengths, develop any weaker areas, and create the best conditions for learning.
• This level of awareness can also help you to communicate with greater impact, and to support other people to learn.

Butler, K. A. (1988). ' It's All In Your Mind ,' Columbia, CT: Learner's Dimension.

Carnell, E. and Lodge, C. (2002). ' Supporting Effective Learning ,' London: Paul Chapman Publishing.

Coffield, F., Moseley, D., Hall, E., & Ecclestone, K. (2004). Learning Styles and Pedagogy in Post-16 Learning: a Systematic and Critical Review. LSRC Reference, Learning & Skills Research Center, London. Available here .

Education Endowment Foundation (2018). Metacognition and Self-Regulation [online]. Available here . [Accessed November 13, 2019.]

Felder & Soloman. Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire [online]. Available here . [Accessed November 1, 2019.]

Henry, J. (2007). Professor Pans "Learning Style" Teaching Method [online]. Available here . [Accessed November 1, 2019.]

Honey, P., & Mumford, A. (1982). ' The Manual of Learning Styles .' Maidenhead: Peter Honey.

Keefe, J. W. (1985). 'Assessment of Learning Style Variables: the NASSP Task Force Model,' Theory into Practice , 24(2), 138-144. Available here .

Kolb, David A. (2015). ‘ Experiential Learning ' (2nd ed.), Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Krätzig, G. P. and Arbuthnott, K. D. (2006). 'Perceptual learning style and learning proficiency: a test of the hypothesis,' Journal of Educational Psychology , 98(1), 238-246. Available here .

Lilienfeld, S. O., Lynn, S. J., Ruscio, J., & Beyerstein, B. L. (2010). ' 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology ,' Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

Massa, L. J., & Mayer, R. E. (2006). 'Testing the ATI hypothesis: Should multimedia instruction accommodate verbalizer-visualizer cognitive style?' Learning and Individual Differences , 16(4), 321-335. Available here .

Pashler, H. et al. (2008). ‘Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence,’ Psychological Science in the Public Interest , 9(3), 105-19. Available here .

VARK is a registered trademark of Vark Learn Ltd., see www.vark-learn.com .

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The 7 main types of learning styles (and how to teach to them), share this article.

Understanding the 7 main types of learning styles and how to teach them will help both your students and your courses be more successful.

When it comes to learning something new, we all absorb information at different rates and understand it differently too. Some students get new concepts right away; others need to sit and ponder for some time before they can arrive at similar conclusions.

Why? The answer lies in the type of learning styles different students feel more comfortable with. In other words, we respond to information in different ways depending on how it is presented to us.

Clearly, different types of learning styles exist, and there are lots of debates in pedagogy about what they are and how to adapt to them.

For practical purposes, it’s recommended to ensure that your course or presentation covers the 7 main types of learning.

In this article, we’ll break down the 7 types of learning styles, and give practical tips for how you can improve your own teaching styles , whether it’s in higher education or an online course you plan to create on the side.

Skip ahead:

What are the 7 types of learning styles?

How to accommodate different types of learning styles online.

• How to help students understand their different types of learning styles

How to create an online course for all

In the academic literature, the most common model for the types of learning you can find is referred to as VARK.

VARK is an acronym that stands for Visual, Auditory, Reading & Writing, and Kinesthetic. While these learning methods are the most recognized, there are people that do not fit into these boxes and prefer to learn differently. So we’re adding three more learning types to our list, including Logical, Social, and Solitary.

Visual learners

Visual learners are individuals that learn more through images, diagrams, charts, graphs, presentations, and anything that illustrates ideas. These people often doodle and make all kinds of visual notes of their own as it helps them retain information better. 

When teaching visual learners, the goal isn’t just to incorporate images and infographics into your lesson. It’s about helping them visualize the relationships between different pieces of data or information as they learn. 

Gamified lessons are a great way to teach visual learners as they’re interactive and aesthetically appealing. You should also give handouts, create presentations, and search for useful infographics to support your lessons.

Since visual information can be pretty dense, give your students enough time to absorb all the new knowledge and make their own connections between visual clues.

Auditory/aural learners

The auditory style of learning is quite the opposite of the visual one. Auditory learners are people that absorb information better when it is presented in audio format (i.e. the lessons are spoken). This type of learner prefers to learn by listening and might not take any notes at all. They also ask questions often or repeat what they have just heard aloud to remember it better.

Aural learners are often not afraid of speaking up and are great at explaining themselves. When teaching auditory learners, keep in mind that they shouldn’t stay quiet for long periods of time. So plan a few activities where you can exchange ideas or ask questions. Watching videos or listening to audio during class will also help with retaining new information.

Reading and writing (or verbal) learners

Reading & Writing learners absorb information best when they use words, whether they’re reading or writing them. To verbal learners, written words are more powerful and granular than images or spoken words, so they’re excellent at writing essays, articles, books, etc. 

To support the way reading-writing students learn best, ensure they have time to take ample notes and allocate extra time for reading. This type of learner also does really well at remote learning, on their own schedule. Including reading materials and writing assignments in their homework should also yield good results.

Kinesthetic/tactile learners

Kinesthetic learners use different senses to absorb information. They prefer to learn by doing or experiencing what they’re being taught. These types of learners are tactile and need to live through experiences to truly understand something new. This makes it a bit challenging to prepare for them in a regular class setting. 

As you try to teach tactile learners, note that they can’t sit still for long and need more frequent breaks than others. You need to get them moving and come up with activities that reinforce the information that was just covered in class. Acting out different roles is great; games are excellent; even collaborative writing on a whiteboard should work fine. If applicable, you can also organize hands-on laboratory sessions, immersions, and workshops.

In general, try to bring every abstract idea into the real world to help kinesthetic learners succeed.

Logical/analytical learners 

As the name implies, logical learners rely on logic to process information and understand a particular subject. They search for causes and patterns to create a connection between different kinds of information. Many times, these connections are not obvious to people to learn differently, but they make perfect sense to logical learners. 

Logical learners generally do well with facts, statistics, sequential lists, and problem-solving tasks to mention a few. 

As a teacher, you can engage logical learners by asking open-ended or obscure questions that require them to apply their own interpretation. You should also use teaching material that helps them hone their problem-solving skills and encourages them to form conclusions based on facts and critical thinking. 

Social/interpersonal learners 

Social or interpersonal learners love socializing with others and working in groups so they learn best during lessons that require them to interact with their peers . Think study groups, peer discussions, and class quizzes. 

To effectively teach interpersonal learners, you’ll need to make teamwork a core part of your lessons. Encourage student interaction by asking questions and sharing stories. You can also incorporate group activities and role-playing into your lessons, and divide the students into study groups.  

Solitary/intrapersonal learners 

Solitary learning is the opposite of social learning. Solitary, or solo, learners prefer to study alone without interacting with other people. These learners are quite good at motivating themselves and doing individual work. In contrast, they generally don’t do well with teamwork or group discussions.

To help students like this, you should encourage activities that require individual work, such as journaling, which allows them to reflect on themselves and improve their skills. You should also acknowledge your students’ individual accomplishments and help them refine their problem-solving skills. 

Are there any unique intelligence types commonly shared by your students? Adapting to these different types of intelligence can help you can design a course best suited to help your students succeed.

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How to help students understand their different types of learning styles 

Unless you’re teaching preschoolers, most students probably already realize the type of learning style that fits them best. But some students do get it wrong.

The key here is to observe every student carefully and plan your content for different learning styles right from the start.

Another idea is to implement as much individual learning as you can and then customize that learning for each student. So you can have visual auditory activities, riddles for logical learners, games for kinesthetic learners, reading activities, writing tasks, drawing challenges, and more.

When you’re creating your first course online, it’s important to dedicate enough time to planning out its structure. Don’t just think that a successful course consists of five uploaded videos.

Think about how you present the new knowledge. Where it makes sense to pause and give students the time to reflect. Where to include activities to review the new material. Adapting to the different learning types that people exhibit can help you design an online course best suited to help your students succeed.

That being said, here are some tips to help you tailor your course to each learning style, or at least create enough balance. 

Visual learners 

Since visual learners like to see or observe images, diagrams, demonstrations, etc., to understand a topic, here’s how you can create a course for them: 

• Include graphics, cartoons, or illustrations of concepts 
• Use flashcards to review course material 
• Use flow charts or maps to organize materials 
• Highlight and color code notes to organize materials 
• Use color-coded tables to compare and contrast elements 
• Use a whiteboard to explain important information
• Have students play around with different font styles and sizes to improve readability 

Auditory learners prefer to absorb information by listening to spoken words, so they do well when teachers give spoken instructions and lessons. Here’s how to cater to this learning type through your online course: 

• Converse with your students about the subject or topic 
• Ask your students questions after each lesson and have them answer you (through the spoken word)
• Have them record lectures and review them with you 
• Have articles, essays, and comprehension passages out to them
• As you teach, explain your methods, questions, and answers 
• Ask for oral summaries of the course material 
• If you teach math or any other math-related course, use a talking calculator 
• Create an audio file that your students can listen to
• Create a video of you teaching your lesson to your student
• Include a YouTube video or podcast episode for your students to listen to
• Organize a live Q & A session where students can talk to you and other learners to help them better understand the subject

Reading and writing (or verbal) learners 

This one is pretty straightforward. Verbal learners learn best when they read or write (or both), so here are some practical ways to include that in your online course:

• Have your students write summaries about the lesson 
• If you teach language or literature, assign them stories and essays that they’d have to read out loud to understand
• If your course is video-based, add transcripts to aid your students’ learning process
• Make lists of important parts of your lesson to help your students memorize them
• Provide downloadable notes and checklists that your students can review after they’ve finished each chapter of your course
• Encourage extra reading by including links to a post on your blog or another website in the course
• Use some type of body movement or rhythm, such as snapping your fingers, mouthing, or pacing, while reciting the material your students should learn

Since kinesthetic learners like to experience hands-on what they learn with their senses — holding, touching, hearing, and doing. So instead of churning out instructions and expecting to follow, do these instead: 

• Encourage them to experiment with textured paper, and different sizes of pencils, pens, and crayons to jot down information
• If you teach diction or language, give them words that they should incorporate into their daily conversations with other people
• Encourage students to dramatize or act out lesson concepts to understand them better 

Logical learners are great at recognizing patterns, analyzing information, and solving problems. So in your online course, you need to structure your lessons to help them hone these abilities. Here are some things you can do:

• Come up with tasks that require them to solve problems. This is easy if you teach math or a math-related course
• Create charts and graphs that your students need to interpret to fully grasp the lesson
• Ask open-ended questions that require critical thinking 
• Create a mystery for your students to solve with clues that require logical thinking or math
• Pose an issue/topic to your students and ask them to address it from multiple perspectives

Since social learners prefer to discuss or interact with others, you should set up your course to include group activities. Here’s how you can do that:

• Encourage them to discuss the course concept with their classmates
• Get your students involved in forum discussions
• Create a platform (via Slack, Discord, etc.) for group discussions
• Pair two or more social students to teach each other the course material
• If you’re offering a cohort-based course , you can encourage students to make their own presentations and explain them to the rest of the class

Solitary learners prefer to learn alone. So when designing your course, you need to take that into consideration and provide these learners a means to work by themselves. Here are some things you can try: 

• Encourage them to do assignments by themselves
• Break down big projects into smaller ones to help them manage time efficiently
• Give them activities that require them to do research on their own
• When they’re faced with problems regarding the topic, let them try to work around it on their own. But let them know that they are welcome to ask you for help if they need to
• Encourage them to speak up when you ask them questions as it builds their communication skills 
• Explore blended learning , if possible, by combining teacher-led classes with self-guided assignments and extra ideas that students can explore on their own.

Now that you’re ready to teach something to everyone, you might be wondering what you actually need to do to create your online courses. Well, start with a platform.

Thinkific is an intuitive and easy-to-use platform any instructor can use to create online courses that would resonate with all types of learning styles. Include videos, audio, presentations, quizzes, and assignments in your curriculum. Guide courses in real-time or pre-record information in advance. It’s your choice.

In addition, creating a course on Thinkific doesn’t require you to know any programming. You can use a professionally designed template and customize it with a drag-and-drop editor to get exactly the course you want in just a few hours. Try it yourself to see how easy it can be.

This blog was originally published in August 2017, it has since been updated in March 2023. 

Althea Storm is a B2B SaaS writer who specializes in creating data-driven content that drives traffic and increases conversions for businesses. She has worked with top companies like AdEspresso, HubSpot, Aura, and Thinkific. When she's not writing web content, she's curled up in a chair reading a crime thriller or solving a Rubik's cube.

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What Are Learning Styles, and How Should Teachers Use Them?

Encourage every student to explore material in a variety of ways.

Teachers are often told to make sure their lessons include a variety of activities to cover all learning styles. But what exactly does that mean?

FAQ: What Are Learning Styles?

Imagine you’re teaching a lesson on the presidency of John Adams. You’ll be giving a quiz on Friday, and you ask your students how they’ll be preparing. Some might say they’ll reread the text, then write down the answers to the review questions you’ve given them. Others might plan to watch a video on John Adams’ life, then talk over what they learned with a study partner. Another could plan to take the timeline handout you provided, cut it up into sections, and practice putting those sections in the proper order.

Each of these students is using different ways of learning in an effort to retain and understand the same information. Some like written words, some prefer to hear it and talk about it. Others need to do something with their hands, or see images and diagrams. These are all various learning styles.

What is VARK?

Source: Nnenna Walters

In the mid-1980s, teacher Neil Fleming introduced the VARK model of learning styles. He theorized that students learned in these four general ways, known as styles or modalities:

• Visual: Seeing images, diagrams, videos, etc.
• Auditory: Hearing lectures and having discussions
• Read/Write: Reading the written word and writing things down
• Kinesthetic: Movement and hands-on activities

Fleming developed a questionnaire ( try a version of it here ) that a student could take to see which learning styles they preferred. The results indicate how their learning preferences spread across the spectrum.

One important detail Fleming noted was that just because you prefer or are good at a certain learning activity, that doesn’t mean it’s actually the style that helps you learn the most. “It is possible to like something (preference) and not be good at it (skill or ability). Similarly it is possible to be very skilled at using strategies aligned with one of the VARK modalities but not use that for learning,” he explained . “As an example, a learner who was very skilled at freehand drawing did not use it for her learning and did not enjoy doing it.”

Are learning styles a proven theory?

There’s a lot of argument over the validity of learning styles. Some studies claim to have debunked the theory entirely , stating that everyone uses each of the various styles at one time or another. Critics worry that pigeonholing a student as an “auditory learner” or a “visual learner” might cause them to limit the ways they approach new material.

That said, learning styles are accepted and used in most education programs. Fleming himself published an article in 2012 defending his theory , explaining that it has been misunderstood and misused. His intention was never to limit the ways in which individual students were encouraged to learn. Rather, he wanted teachers to better understand all the different ways they could reach their students.

Does a person have just one learning style?

Source: VARK Research

Absolutely not, says Fleming. “Because learners have different preferences between the four modes, it is unlikely that any particular mode will be dominant. That is why multimodality is the most common profile for two-thirds of learners.”

In other words, while some people lean strongly toward one learning type (modality), most are more evenly spread across the spectrum. The way they learn best will depend on the material and situation. The key isn’t to find a single best way for a student to learn. It’s to discover  all the ways all students can learn.

How should teachers use learning styles in the classroom?

The biggest takeaway for teachers is that they should design their curriculum with activities that fit all four learning styles. If you’re teaching students about earthquakes, plan to provide reading material, watch videos, explore diagrams, and do some hands-on classroom experiments. This array of activities allows all students to find a way of learning that suits them best.

Avoid classifying particular students as one type of learner, even if you note a particular preference. Rather than thinking of “visual learn ers ,” think of “visual learn ing .” Encourage every student to explore material in a variety of ways, finding the methods that help them the most.

If a student is having trouble mastering material one way, offer alternatives. For instance, one student can’t seem to memorize their math facts. They spend time doing flash cards with their parents every day at home, but it’s just not sticking. Encourage the student to try something different. Maybe they can watch a video that sets the math facts to music. Or they might benefit from playing a matching game with the flash cards, or even hopping along the floor from one card to the next as they practice. Engage different senses in the process until you find one that brings the learning home.

The Four Learning Styles in the Classroom

Take a closer look at what the various learning styles look like in the classroom, and discover activities that support those styles.

Visual Learning

Source: TeachThought

When you’re learning visually, you’re engaging your eyes. These activities involve bright colors, graphic representations of concepts or materials, and lots of visual aids.

What It Looks Like:

• Diagrams, charts, graphs, and maps
• Videos, photos, and other images
• Drawing and doodling
• Interesting layouts and formats of written material
• Colors and shapes

Classroom Activities

• Math: Represent numbers and problems in a variety of ways, including pictures , 10-frames , videos, and diagrams
• Language Arts: Add images to support the text, like photos, charts, and maps; encourage students to make drawings representing what they read
• Science: Watch videos, look at pictures, analyze charts and diagrams
• Social Studies: Explore maps in detail, look at pictures, provide charts and diagrams, watch videos

Auditory Learning

Source: Argo Prep

Auditory (also called aural) learning is all about sound, both listening and talking. The more students get a chance to hear, say, and discuss the information, the better.

• Videos with sound
• Text-to-speech translation
• Discussion and debate
• Asking and answering questions
• Teaching others
• Math: Sing songs to learn numbers or math facts, talk through problems out loud while solving them, repeat formulas out loud, watch math videos
• Language Arts: Read out loud (to self or others), listen to audiobooks , practice spelling words out loud
• Science: Watch videos with sound, learn songs about concepts, discuss ideas and experiments
• Social Studies: Debate or discuss a topic, read articles out loud, watch videos with sound

Read/Write Learning

Source: Kwik Pass

As the name suggests, this style focuses on the written word. Whether reading or writing, it all comes down to seeing things in words on the page. Some people lump this modality with visual learning, but this style relies much more on written text than images.

• Textbooks, articles, and handouts
• Video with subtitles turned on
• Essays and papers
• Speech-to-text translation and transcripts
• Making lists, with subheads, bullet points, etc.
• Taking detailed notes
• Writing answers to questions instead of answering out loud
• Math: Complete worksheets, write down math facts and formulas, turn numerical problems into word problems
• Language Arts: Read independently, write essays or answers to questions, take notes during discussions or lectures
• Science: Read texts and articles, watch videos with subtitles turned on, take detailed notes during hands-on experiments and activities, write down concepts in your own words during lectures
• Social Studies: Read texts and articles, watch videos with subtitles turned on, write answers to review questions, take detailed notes during lectures, provide transcripts of videos

Kinesthetic Learning

Source: Open Library

When you tie movement to learning, that’s the kinesthetic style. This modality involves lots of hands-on activities and the ability to try things for yourself. Dancing and even exercise can reinforce this type of learning.

• Hands-on practice
• Educational craft projects
• Experiments and demonstrations
• Trial and error
• Exploring real-life examples of concepts and ideas
• Moving while learning
• Math: Play active math games ( see a list here ), practice counting while jumping or performing other movements, show how concepts apply in real-life situations, use lots of math manipulatives
• Language Arts: Read nonfiction and autobiographies, write letters in the air while spelling the words, perform a skit that summarizes a story, use active reading games ( see a list here )
• Science: Complete hands-on demonstrations, design and perform experiments , apply the concepts to real life
• Social Studies: Visit museums and historic sites, draw timelines, reenact historical events, try the dances and arts of a culture

Next, try these 21 Differentiated Instruction Strategies Every Teacher Can Use .

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4 Types of Learning Styles: How to Accommodate a Diverse Group of Students

By Callie Malvik on 08/17/2020

We all experience the world in unique ways, and with that comes variation in the ways we learn best. Understanding these different types of learning styles can drastically impact the way teachers handle their students, set up group projects and adapt individual learning. Without understanding and acknowledging these different ways of learning, teachers might end up with a handful of students lagging behind their classmates—in part because their unique learning style hasn’t been activated.

Part of your responsibility as an educator is to adjust your lessons to the unique group of students you are working with at any given time. The best teachers can cater to each student’s strengths, ensuring they are truly grasping the information.

So how do you meet the needs of different types of learners in your class? Join us as we outline the four types of learning styles and how teachers can practically apply this information in their classrooms.

Ways of learning: A closer look at 4 learning styles

Learning styles and preferences take on a variety of forms—and not all people fit neatly into one category. But generally speaking, these are the most common types of learners:

1. Visual learners

How to recognize visual learners in your class: Someone with a preference for visual learning is partial to seeing and observing things, including pictures, diagrams, written directions and more. This is also referred to as the “spatial” learning style. Students who learn through sight understand information better when it’s presented in a visual way. These are your doodling students, your list makers and your students who take notes.

How to cater to visual learners: The whiteboard or smartboard is your best friend when teaching these types of learners. Give students opportunities to draw pictures and diagrams on the board, or ask students to doodle examples based on the topic they’re learning. Teachers catering to visual learners should regularly make handouts and use presentations. Visual learners may also need more time to process material, as they observe the visual cues before them. So be sure to give students a little time and space to absorb the information.

2. Auditory learners

How to recognize auditory learners in your class: Auditory learners tend to learn better when the subject matter is reinforced by sound. These students would much rather listen to a lecture than read written notes, and they often use their own voices to reinforce new concepts and ideas. These types of learners prefer reading out loud to themselves. They aren’t afraid to speak up in class and are great at verbally explaining things. Additionally, they may be slower at reading and may often repeat things a teacher tells them.

How to cater to auditory learners: Since these students generally find it hard to stay quiet for long periods of time, get your auditory learners involved in the lecture by asking them to repeat new concepts back to you. Ask questions and let them answer. Invoke group discussions so your auditory and verbal processors can properly take in and understand the information they’re being presented with. Watching videos and using music or audiotapes are also helpful ways of learning for this group.

3. Kinesthetic learners

How to recognize kinesthetic learners in your class: Kinesthetic learners, sometimes called tactile learners, learn through experiencing or doing things. They like to get involved by acting out events or using their hands to touch and handle in order to understand concepts. These types of learners might struggle to sit still and often excel at sports or like to dance. They may need to take more frequent breaks when studying.

How to cater to kinesthetic learners: The best way teachers can help these students learn is by getting them moving. Instruct students to act out a certain scene from a book or a lesson you’re teaching. Also try encouraging these students by incorporating movement into lessons: pacing to help memorize, learning games that involve moving around the classroom or having students write on the whiteboard as part of an activity.

Once kinesthetic learners can physically sense what they’re studying, abstract ideas and difficult concepts become easier to understand.

4. Reading/writing learners

How to recognize reading/writing learners in your class: According to the VARK Modalities theory developed by Fleming and Mills in 1992, reading/writing learners prefer to learn through written words. While there is some overlap with visual learning, these types of learners are drawn to expression through writing, reading articles or books, writing in diaries, looking up words in the dictionary and searching the internet for just about everything.

How to cater to reading/writing learners: Of the four learning styles, this is probably the easiest to cater to since much of the traditional educational system tends to center on writing essays, doing research and reading books. Be mindful about allowing plenty of time for these students to absorb information through the written word, and give them opportunities to get their ideas out on paper as well.

Embrace all types of learning

Understanding these different learning styles doesn’t end in the classroom. By equipping students with tools in their early years, teachers are empowering them for their futures. Pinpointing how a child learns best can dramatically affect their ability to connect with the topics you’re teaching, as well as how they participate with the rest of the class.  Moreover, the role of parents in a child's education is crucial. Positive parental involvement in education can further enhance a child's learning experience, fostering academic success and overall development. Explore our article on " Positive Parental Involvement in Education " to discover effective strategies and insights on how parents can actively engage in their child's educational journey.

Now that you have some tactics in your back pocket to accommodate different ways of learning, you may be curious about classroom management strategies. Learn more in our article, “ Proven Classroom Management Tips for Preschool Teachers . ”. Additionally, check out " What is Ableism? Teachers Share 8 Things They Wish the World Understood ".

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published in 2018. It has since been updated to include information relevant to 2020.

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Different Learning Styles—What Teachers Need To Know

The concept of “learning styles” has been overwhelmingly embraced by educators in the U.S. and worldwide. Studies show that an estimated 89% of teachers believe in matching instruction to a student’s preferred learning style (Newton & Salvi, 2020). That’s a problem—because research tells us that this approach doesn’t work to improve learning.

What Do We Mean by “Learning Styles”?

It’s true that people have fairly stable strengths and weaknesses in their cognitive abilities, such as processing language or visual-spatial stimuli. People can also have preferences in the way they receive information—Joan may prefer to read an article while Jay may rather listen to a lecture.

The “learning styles” theory makes a big leap, suggesting that students will learn better if they are taught in a manner that conforms to their preferences. More than 70 different systems have been developed that use student questionnaires/self-reports to categorize their supposed learning preferences.

VARK Learning Styles

One of the most popular learning styles inventories used in schools is the VARK system (Cuevas, 2015). Students answer 25 multiple-choice questions that range from how they like their teachers to teach (discussions and guest speakers, textbooks and handouts, field trips and labs, or charts and diagrams) to how they would give directions to a neighbor’s house (draw a map, write out directions, say them aloud, or walk with the person) (VARK Learn Limited, 2021). Based on their responses, the system classifies them as Visual, Auditory, Read-write, and/or Kinesthetic learners and recommends specific learning strategies.

If only it were that simple. While this brief survey may provide some insights for teachers, we must be wary of overestimating the value of the results. By placing students in categories that reflect “preferred learning styles,” we run the risk of oversimplifying the complex nature of teaching and learning to the detriment of our students.

What Does the Science Say?

Study after study has shown that matching instructional mode to a student’s supposedly identified “learning style” does not produce better learning outcomes. In fact, a student’s “learning style” may not even predict the way they prefer to be taught or the way they actually choose to study on their own (Newton & Salvi, 2020).

Simply put, students’ learning preferences as identified via questionnaires do not predict the singular, best way to teach them. A single student may learn best with one approach in one subject and a different one in another. The best approach for them may even vary day-to-day. Most likely, students are best served when a variety of strategies are employed in a lesson.

As appealing as a framework like VARK is—relatively easy to conceptualize and quick to assess—everyone engages in different modes of learning in various ways. The brain processes information in very complex and nuanced ways that can’t be so simply generalized.

Fads are common in education. Having been embraced for several decades, though, “learning styles” has moved beyond fad to what experts refer to as “neuromyth,” one of many “commonly accepted, erroneous beliefs based on misunderstandings of neuroscience that contribute to pseudoscientific practice within education (Ruhaak & Cook, 2018). In fact, the idea that “students learn best when teaching styles are matched to their learning styles” earned a spot in 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology (Lilienfeld, Lynn, & Beyerstein, 2009), alongside “Extrasensory perception is a well-established scientific phenomenon” and “Our handwriting reveals our personality traits.”

Unfortunately, the myth has become so prevalent that the majority of papers written about learning styles are based on the assumption that matching teaching style to learning style is desirable (Newton, 2015). It’s no surprise, then, that well-intentioned educators (and parents and caregivers) buy into the concept as well.

What Harm Does It Do?

When a student is pigeonholed as a particular “type” of learner, and their lessons are all prepared with that in mind, they could be missing out on other learning opportunities with a better chance of success.

Adapting instruction to individual students’ “learning styles” is no small task—and teachers who attempt to do so are clearly motivated to find the best way to help their students. They could put their time to better use, though.

Better Learning Style Approaches

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an evidence-driven framework for improving and optimizing learning for all students. When a learning opportunity provides for 1) multiple means of engagement, 2) multiple means of representation, and 3) multiple means of action and expression, different styles of learning are accounted for at the outset, reducing the need to personalize every activity. Nonprofit CAST.org, where KU Special Education Professor Jamie Basham is Senior Director for Learning & Innovation, offers free UDL Guidelines, with detailed information on how to optimize learning for all your students.

Operating within a UDL framework, teachers should use Evidence-based Practices (EBPs)—specific teaching techniques and interventions that have sufficient published, peer-reviewed studies that demonstrate their effectiveness in addressing specific issues with particular populations of students. (We discussed EBPs for autism spectrum disorder in a previous blog.) In addition, the Council for Exceptional Children recommends a core set of High Leverage Practices –basic, foundational practices that every special education teacher should know and perform fluently.

Evidence-based Learning Style Approaches at KU Special Education

Faculty in the University of Kansas Department of Special Education are world-renowned for their research in UDL and evidence-based special education practices. Students can be assured that our online master’s degrees and graduate certificates focus on research-based teaching and assessment methods—just one of the reasons we’ve been rated the #1 Best Online Master’s Degree in Special Education by U.S. News & World Report for two years in a row. 1

Explore our special education programs and consider how earning an online master’s from a Top 10 Best Education School (among public universities) can help you achieve your goals

CAST (2018). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.2. Retrieved March 4, 2021 from udlguidelines.cast.org.

Cuevas, J. (2015). Is learning styles-based instruction effective? A comprehensive analysis of recent research on learning styles. Theory & Research in Education. 13 (3), 308–333. doi.org/10.1177/1477878515606621

Lilienfeld, S., Lynn, J., Rucio, J., & Beyerstein, B. (2009) 50 great myths of popular psychology: Shattering widespread misconceptions about human behavior. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN: 978-1405131117

Newton, P. M. (2015). The learning styles myth is thriving in higher education. Frontiers in Psychology, 6 , 1908. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01908

Newton, P. M. & Salvi, A. (2020). How common is belief in the learning styles neuromyth, and does it matter? A pragmatic systematic review. Frontiers in Education, 5 (602451), 1-14. doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2020.602451

Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., and Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9 , 105–119. doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01038.x

Ruhaak, A. E., & Cook, B. G. (2018). The prevalence of educational neuromythings among pre-service special education teachers. Mind, Brain, and Education. 12 (3) 155-161. doi.org/10.1111/mbe.12181

1 Retrieved on May 13, 2021, from usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-education-schools/university-of-kansas-06075 2 Retrieved on May 13, 2021, from usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-education-schools/edu-rankings

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94 Learning Styles Essay Topics

🏆 best essay topics on learning styles, 👍 good learning styles research topics & essay examples, 🎓 most interesting learning styles research titles, 💡 simple learning styles essay ideas, ❓ research questions about learning styles.

• Learning and Teaching Styles
• Teaching Methodologies for Various Learning Styles
• The VARK Questionnaire: Learning Styles
• Multimodal Learning Style and Strategies
• Auditory Learning Style, Its Features and Application
• Visual Learning Style and Improvement Strategy
• Learning Style and Reading Achievement
• Visual, Aural, Read/Write, Kinesthetic Learning Styles The VARK analysis indicates that the most prominent aspects of the learning method are lists, notes, and texts that provide descriptions and other learning aspects.
• Kinesthetic Learning Preference and Other Styles This paper presents the assessment of results acquired after completing the VARK questionnaire that identified a person’s preferred learning techniques.
• Learning Styles Analysis in Nursing This essay analysis various learning styles, which are adopted by nurse students. The essay uses the Kolb’s learning model to classify learning styles.
• Vark Learning Style Assessment Analysis In this paper, the VARK assessment results show that my preferred learning style is the multimodal style with strong emphasis on read/write, kinesthetic, and aural learning styles.
• Personal Learning Style According to Kolb’s Theory Kolb’s model is quite practical and multi-dimensional because it offers effective techniques for understanding different learning styles that individuals apply.
• VARK: A Guide to Learning Styles The VARK guide recommends that people with reading/writing learning preferences form a habit of making learnable packages.
• Styles in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Huber concludes this essay by saying that the practice of the scholarship of teaching and learning is increasingly being appreciated.
• Learning Styles and Approaches Among Medical Education Participants According to the VARK questionnaire, my learning style is mild kinesthetic. In general, this style relies on practical information and real-world phenomena.
• Personal Learning Style and Recommended Strategies The peculiarities of the learning style precondition the choice of learning strategies and methods to understand information.
• Learning Style: How to Choose and How to Use? This paper will discuss the different learning style dimensions, how to identify the best learning style, and explore strategies for working with one’s preferred learning style.
• Visual Learning Style and Its Application According to the test results, I am a visual learner. Visual learners are distracted by sounds and people around them, and I can say it is true about my learning style.
• Learning Styles for Better Academic Performance Learning style is a set of unique and specific approaches employed by individuals during the process of studying. Using a learning style correlates with school performance.
• Learning Styles and Leadership in Self-Reflection The research on personal learning styles was conducted using the Belbin questionnaire technique and Honey and Mumford learning styles questionnaire.
• Which Style of Teaching and Learning Do PMU Students Prefer Familiarity with particular predispositions towards specific types of classes is necessary for achieving proper student engagement and efficiency.
• Multiple Learning Styles and Strategies This analysis has underscored the importance of knowing the preferred learning style and associated strategies. The analysis has also demonstrated that students can have multiple learning styles.
• Learning Style and Read/Write Study Strategies The preferred learning style is determined to be mostly in the area of reading and writing. Points and determinants are related to visual, aural and kinesthetic.
• Health Literacy: Diverse Needs and Learning Styles This paper identifies individual learning styles and the unique learning needs of diverse learners integrating health literacy considerations into health assessment.
• The VARK Questionnaire and Learning Styles People who use read/write and kinesthetic style prefer the printed word as a source of information, as well as pictures/personal experience to complete tasks.
• Multimodal Learning Preference and Other Styles This paper presents the analysis of the VARK Questionnaire which allows to identify preferred learning strategies and empower the learning process.
• Individual Learning Styles for Training Programs The learning styles have a direct impact on education and training programs because this consideration is important for developing different teaching and learning techniques.
• Cognitive Styles and Learning Strategies The process of learning is not a simple summation of the individual feelings or the result of the simple association of the features. This process is different for each person.
• Visual, Aural, Read, Kinaesthetic Learning Styles Considering the results of the test using VARK questionnaire, the paper is aimed at summarizing the author’s learning style, specifying the preferred learning strategies.
• The Learning Styles and Personalities of Biomedical Engineering Students
• Learning Styles and Effective Study Habits
• Kolb’s Learning Styles and Experiential Learning Cycle Assignment
• Teaching Students With Different Learning Styles on a Virtual Platform?
• Brain Dominance and Various Learning Styles
• Relationship Between Learning Styles Gender and Mathematics Scores
• Skills and Learning Styles of Innovative Companies’ Employees
• Learning Styles and Self-regulated Learning for Sciences
• Erroneous Learning Styles Educational Approach
• Adult Learning Styles and Curriculum Development
• Assessment Between Learning Styles and Overall Academic Achievement
• Different Learning Styles Make Better Students
• Child Learning Styles and Factors That Effect Them
• Learning Styles and Different Levels of Understanding
• Vark Learning Styles: Read/Write Learning Style
• Learning Styles and Technology in a Ninth-grade High School Population
• Individuals With Different Learning Styles and Personality Types Assignment
• Learning Styles and Comprehension of Secondary Special Education Students
• Why Learning Styles Matter for Student Achievement in College Economics
• Learning Styles and Reaching Full Potential
• Accommodating Different Learning Styles in the Classroom
• Learning Styles and the Accounting Profession
• Diversity, Religion, and Learning Styles
• Therapeutic Recreation for Different Learning Styles
• Learning Styles and Personality Types in a Group Dynamic
• Teaching and Learning Styles in Music Reading
• Learning Styles for Children With Down Syndrome
• The Learning Cycle and Learning Styles of Kolb, Honey and Mumford
• Variances Between Learning Styles and Academics Education
• Differentiation Learning Styles and Inclusive Education
• Learning Styles and Their Strengths, Weaknesses, and Preference
• Educational Theories and Learning Styles on Teaching Practice
• Learning Styles and Strategies by Richard Felder and Barbra
• Technology and Learning Styles Among High School Freshman
• Learning Styles, Multiple Intelligence, and Deep Learning
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Learning Styles
• Language Learning Styles Used by Students in Globalization
• Different Learning Styles Used by Students
• Understanding Multiple Intelligences and Learning Styles
• Types of Charter Schools and a New Approach to Children’s Learning Style
• Can Educators Take Advantage of Individual Learning Styles?
• How Do Learning Styles Affect Society and Education System?
• What Is the Importance of Learning the Different Learning Styles of Children?
• How Can Learning Styles Improve a Person’s Way of Learning?
• Why Is It Important for Teachers to Know the Different Learning Styles of Learners or Their Multiple Intelligences?
• What Is the Difference Between Learning Styles and Learning Theories?
• How Do Learning Styles Affect Students’ Learning?
• What Are the Benefits of Learning Styles?
• How Can Learning Styles Help Personal Development?
• Why Is It Important to Understand the Personality and Learning Styles of Individuals?
• How Might Being Aware of Your Learning Styles Help You to Achieve Success in College?
• What Is the Benefit of Identifying the Learning Style at College and Why?
• How Do Learning Styles Affect Student Performance?
• Do Learning Styles Affect Study Duration and Academic Success?
• Is There a Significant Relationship Between Learning Styles and Academic Performance?
• Why Is It Important to Cater to Different Learning Styles?
• What Factors Can Influence the Learning Style of Students?
• Does Learning Style Influence Academic Performance in Different Forms of Assessment?
• Which Learning Style Is the Most Effective?
• Why Do Learning Styles Matter in the Workplace?
• Is There a Best Learning Style in All Learning Situations?
• Which Learning Style Is Best for Learners Who Learn Best Through Words?
• What Role Do Learning Styles Play in Teacher Effectiveness?
• Is Learning Style Important in Patient Education?
• What Are the Characteristics of the Visual Learning Style?

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This essay topic collection was updated on December 27, 2023 .

Learning Styles Assessment Essay

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The complexity of any learning process requires individuals to ensure that they are self-aware in terms of information channels that work best for them. One of the most efficient ways to define these peculiarities is to conduct a self-assessment on the matter of learning styles. Thus, according to the assessment results, the following learning styles are most common for my cognitive specifics:

• Active learning – 5;
• Sensing learning – 3;
• Global learning – 3;
• Visual learning – 1.

Considering these results, it should be outlined that all the aforementioned learning styles were used in juxtaposition with other options, with indicators varying between 1 and 3 indicating that a learner might appeal to both learning options without significant difference in terms of the outcomes. Thus, it means that during my learning process, I may use sensing and intuitive, global and sequential, and visual and verbal approaches with barely any impact on the result. However, as far as the “active – reflective” learning paradigm is concerned, it should be emphasized that the former tends to be more efficient for my perception of information, whereas reflective learning could become challenging for me in some cases.

When speaking of active learning as the most suitable approach to the process, it stands for one’s tendency to perceive information better when cooperating with others and experimenting with things instead of reflecting on the theoretical fundamentals of the item. According to the researchers, some of the most successful strategies of active learning include promoting an interdisciplinary approach to the new information and critical evaluation of the matter within a group (Misseyanni et al., 2018). Thus, to memorize and understand the information, it is necessary to find ways to connect it to the already known information through the means of active discussion or experiment. In such a way, hands-on learning will contribute to one’s ability to recognize the actual value of the knowledge provided.

Misseyanni, A., Papadopoulou, P., Marouli, C., & Lytras, M. D. (Eds.). (2018). Active learning strategies in higher education . Emerald Publishing Limited.

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Learning Styles, Essay Example

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When I ask people why they chose to attend college, better career prospects is often the major reason given by more respondents. The prospects of better career opportunities also influenced my decision to attend college but for me, it was only one of several reasons. Another major reason I chose to attend college was to learn more about the real world through interactions with people from diverse cultural, economic, and social backgrounds. I have been inquisitive for as long as I remember and I not only enjoy meeting new people but also enjoy observing them and developing hypothesis as to why the world is the way it is. In addition, I read on a wide variety of subject matters in order to expand my thinking horizon. I also realize that people have different learning styles and modern education system should accommodate these distinct learning styles to enhance the overall academic experiences of the students. Fortunately, technology has also made it possible now to accommodate different learning styles inexpensively. Knowing one’s learning style is important because it helps individuals adopt more effective learning strategies in both private and professional aspects of life. This is why this paper touches upon the learning style assessments I took. Not surprisingly, the results of learning styles assessments I undertook confirm the fact that I am generally more interested in the big picture rather than every single detail and visual elements help enhance the learning process for me.

The first learning style test I took was hosted by Penn State University on its website (Penn State, 2010). The outcome of the test revealed me as a visual learner and recommended that even though I should study all course materials, I would greatly benefit from the use of charts, maps, filmstrips, notes and flashcards. The assessment test also recommends practicing visualizing words/concepts in my head to better grasp the material. This once again confirms that I enjoy observing the visual world even if I don’t directly interact with the subjects under observation. The second learning style test I took was hosted at North Carolina State University’s website (Felder & Soloman, n.d.). The test measured my learning style on 4 different scales. According to the results, I am more a reflective learner than an active learner which means I need time to reflect upon the material to better grasp it. The test also revealed I am more intuitive than sensing which means I am not strictly interested in hard facts or take systematic approach to solving problems but rather prefer abstract ideas and innovative methods of doing things. The test also confirmed the fact that I am more of a visual learner as opposed to verbal learner which means I prefer visual elements to textual elements. On the last measure involving sequential and global learners, I only slightly gravitated more towards being a global learner. In other words, I get the bigger picture often without connecting the dots and then work my way back to learn about the connections.

I am now convinced of the reliability of the two learning styles test I took because the results have been exactly what I expected. As I mentioned earlier, I enjoy talking to people, engaging in random observations, and reading on a wide range of subject matters. I believe most things are connected to others in some manner and having a knowledge on a wide range of issues helps us better understand the world. I also think I tend to prefer ideas more than minute details and grasp information quite quickly when they are presented in visual format as compared to textual format. Similarly, I prefer studying alone because it gives me opportunity to reflect upon material without unnecessary disturbance from others.

People have different learning styles and it is important to know one’s learning style to maximize learning in both private and professional aspects of life. I have always enjoyed meeting people and reading on a wide range of subject matters to broaden my thinking horizon. In addition, I also enjoy observation processes because they help me develop possible hypothesis as to why the world functions the way it does. The outcomes of my learning styles tests confirm the fact that I prefer ideas to strict details and I learn better through visual elements as compared to textual material.

Felder, R. M., & Soloman, B. A. (n.d.). Index of learning styles. Retrieved from http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html

Penn State. (2010). Learning style inventory. Retrieved from http://www.personal.psu.edu/bxb11/LSI/LSI.htm

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Learning Styles Essay

Education is important. Learning is important. But what’s the best way to learn? That’s where learning styles come in.

There are three main learning styles: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. And each person tends to have a preferred learning style. Some people may even use a combination of all three learning styles.

Visual learners prefer to learn by seeing information. This could mean reading texts or watching videos. Auditory learners prefer to learn by hearing information. This could mean listening to lectures or taking part in conversations. Kinesthetic learners prefer to learn by doing things. This could mean participating in hands-on activities or simulations.

It might be difficult to learn for some. If you don’t understand how you learn and absorb information, that may be the case. Fortunately, contemporary educators are becoming more aware of their students’ learning styles and are able to adapt to meet them.

In this learning styles essay, we’ll look at the definition of learning styles and how educators can use them to benefit their students.

Most people learn using a combination of all three methods, but everyone has a preference for one particular style. The VARK model is a widely used way of determining an individual’s preferred learning style. This model identifies four main types of learners:

– Visual (V): These learners prefer to learn through seeing information, whether that be in the form of pictures, diagrams, or other visual aids.

– Auditory (A): Auditory learners take in information best when they can hear it. They often benefit from listening to lectures or recordings, or engaging in discussions.

– Reading/Writing (R): These learners prefer to learn through reading and writing. They often take extensive notes and like to have information in a written format.

– Kinesthetic (K): Kinesthetic learners prefer to learn through hands-on experience. They often benefit from activities, experiments, or other forms of active learning.

It’s important to note that everyone has a preferred learning style, but that doesn’t mean that other styles are ineffective for them. In fact, many people learn best when they combine all three methods. However, by understanding your preferred learning style, you can tailor your education to fit your needs and maximize your learning potential.

Some people may not be aware of their learning style category, and there are online surveys that can reveal their learning style strengths. I just took one myself, and my results are as follows; Visual: 7 Aural: 9 Read/Write: 4 Kinesthetic: 9. This basically implies that I am a good listener and hands-on learner. The survey also offered me with some educational options to help me improve my knowledge.

I now know that I should avoid long lectures, try to study in short spurts and take time for breaks, make use of post-it notes, and highlight key points. I also should focus on the main ideas and make connections to better understand the material. Breaking down the information and organizing it will help me process and learn the information quicker (Dunn & Dunn, 1993).

Take notes and record are my first methods of studying in class. In class, I frequently write down anything of key interest to the lectures. It may be beneficial when I can’t remember something. Take notes might help me improve my listening and writing abilities since I have to type and listen at the same time. Because we wrote it down, it will take longer for us to memorize it since we remembered it once and then read it again when we studied it.

I also use study groups as a method to study. It is more beneficial when it comes to studying for exams or understanding assignments. In a study group, we would discuss the concepts and try to explain it to each other in our own words. This helped me understand the material better since I had to explain it in simpler terms. It also helped me catch up on anything I missed in class. Study groups are a great way to improve your communication skills and socialize with others who are in your classes.

My last method of studying is by myself at home or in the library. I usually read over my notes and try to memorize them as best as I can. I also like to make flashcards to help me remember key terms or definitions. This method is more beneficial for me when I have to memorize a lot of information for exams. It is also good for when I want to focus on one particular subject.

I think that each learning style has its own benefits and drawbacks. It is important to find the right mix of methods that work best for you. Personally, I like to use a combination of all three methods depending on the situation.

Then there’s the subject of your record; I believe it’s accurate to say that we had a discussion, but then again – maybe not. Obviously, if you’re recording in class, this takes away the advantage of being able to eavesdrop on other students’ conversations. The fact that you may listen to them at any time, even while sleeping, is another feature I appreciate about them.

There are different ways of learning and people have their own preferences on how they want to learn new information. Some people learn better by listening to audio recordings, others prefer reading texts, and others prefer seeing visuals. This is what is known as learning styles.

Different learning styles require different approaches in order for the information to be effectively absorbed. For example, someone who prefers visual learning might benefit from using things like flashcards or diagrams when trying to memorize new information. Someone who prefers auditory learning might find it helpful to listen to audio recordings or have someone read aloud to them. And someone who prefers kinesthetic learning might find it helpful to physically write out information or act out scenarios.

It’s important to note that everyone has a preference for one particular learning style, but that doesn’t mean that other styles can’t be effective. It’s also important to keep in mind that different situations might call for different learning styles. For example, you might prefer visual learning when you’re trying to memorize new vocabulary words, but auditory learning might be more effective when you’re trying to understand a new concept in math.

The most important thing is to experiment with different approaches and find what works best for you. There is no “right” way to learn, so don’t be afraid to mix things up and try something new!

Remember, there’s no such thing as a superior learning style; each has benefits and drawbacks depending on your goals. And I just gave you some pointers in my own words to assist you. You may develop your own style to make studying easier and more enjoyable by adapting what you want to learn to your learning style.

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