Learning is a complex phenomenon where a learner constitutes a system operating at neural, physiological, cognitive and social levels, with interactions between and across processes and levels, effecting neural to cognitive to social levels and vice versa. In tracing historical paradigms, theories of learning have been traditionally fragmented in…

This paper argues that learning analytics (LA) can make contributions to learning research, in addition to aiming for improvements in learning and teaching practices in a solely applied sense. Indeed, there is potential for transforming learning research if certain approaches developed in LA were used more extensively to study learning. The…

Learning styles have been widely accepted in pedagogical practice but suffer from a distinct lack of empirical support. While a diverse range of learning styles have been proposed, modality preference has received the most attention within educational research and practice. Supporters of this theory posit that each individual has a dominant sense…

The author has been asked to respond to Lodge, Hansen, and Cottrell's recent (2015) paper in this journal and they have done a very thorough and scholarly job of dissecting the weaknesses of modality preference theories. They clearly and carefully analyse the nature of the evidence for modality preference and conclude that there is little if any…