When a researcher encounters the term "learning styles," its meaning, rather than being explicitly obvious, is dependent on the tradition and therefore the context from which the term has originated. For a new researcher, in particular, it can be a confusing and potentially time consuming process to correctly identify the differences in…

Teaching and learning research since the 1980s has established a trend in students' learning approach tendencies, characterised by decreasing surface learning and increasing deep learning with increasing age. This is an important trend in higher education, especially at a time of increasing numbers of older students: are we graduating more deep…