The debate on the validity of teaching students how to identify their own preferred learning style is not going to go away anytime soon as evidenced by the number of articles still being written about the topic. One can find numerous research studies that say students have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to learning and retaining…

This commentary is a response to those of Hall (2016) and Winebrenner (2016), which in turn were responses to the article the authors wrote on modality preferences and learning styles (Lodge, Hansen, & Cottrell, 2016). There are several key points the authors wish to address in this reply. Most importantly, and aligned with the aims and focus…

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…

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on our efforts to balance consistency in our multi-year participatory action research study with the need to adapt our research protocol to what we are learning along the way. While both are important, we share several examples of how our flexibility and openness to adapt our protocol to our research…

Before instruction, 192 nursing students completed Kolb's Learning Style Inventory; 53.7% were concrete learners, 46.3% reflective. No significant associations appeared between learning style and age, sex, prior employment, or educational attainment. Methodological problems were found with using this instrument in nursing education. (SK)

It is suggested that the theoretical stance of Nisbett and Wilson's work on the limitations to conscious awareness of mental processes is not clearly formulated. Some methodological recommendations are listed, and a brief report is given of some experimental findings that seem counter to those of Nisbett and Wilson. (RL)

Discusses the differences among researchers in learning style definitions, instruments used to identify learning style, and the applications of their research. (Author/MLF)

When students are taught with approaches matching their preferences as identified in Rita Dunn's "Learning Style Inventory," they demonstrate statistically higher achievement and attitude test scores than when taught with approaches mismatching their preferences. Learning styles must be identified with a reliable instrument, because…

This report discusses the current state of research into the visual effects of screen layout design, i.e., the arrangement of design elements on a screen. First, two types of design elements are described: technical (those things that engineers work with and that users have little or no control over), and comprehensibility (those elements that a…

Summarizes theoretical perspectives and research findings concerning the effects of anxiety upon personal development, mentioning the link between fear and anxiety. The differences between state and trait anxiety, and the limits of measurement with these two types of anxiety are noted. (Author/DB)

Examines the evidence for sex differences in cognitive functioning, and evaluates the evidence for hormonal, genetic, neuroanatomical, and cultural determinants of such differences. Inadequacies in research methodology are noted. (Author/SS)

The conclusion that learning disabled children have a deficit in perceptual organization is not accepted because of two major methodological problems. Dean refutes this criticism showing that learning disabled children have a perceptual organization deficit when compared with emotionally disturbed children. (Author/BEF)

As dropout and student disengagement rates reach alarmingly high levels, learning styles theory offers one way to expand teaching methods and curricula to reach more students. Although accommodating individual differences is appealing, nagging doubts and murky research results (detailed in a sidebar) persist. Another sidebar explores culture/style…

Research suggests that when subjects are given a rule as to how to translate auditory or verbal information into images, the images have many common characteristics with cognitive representations derived from visual perceptions. This experiment examined the process of cognitive integration and the similarities and differences between how imagined…