In an influential publication in 2009, a group of cognitive psychologists revealed that there was a lack of empirical evidence supporting the concept of learning styles-based instruction and provided guidelines for the type of research design necessary to verify the learning styles hypothesis. This article examined the literature since 2009 to ascertain whether the void has been filled by rigorous studies designed to test the matching hypothesis and identify interaction effects. Correlational and experimental research recently published on learning styles is reviewed, along with an examination of how the subject is portrayed in teacher education texts. Results revealed that the more methodologically sound studies have tended to refute the hypothesis and that a substantial divide continues to exist, with learning styles instruction enjoying broad acceptance in practice, but the majority of research evidence suggesting that it has no benefit to student learning, deepening questions about its validity.

This study tested two cognitive models, learning styles and dual coding, which make contradictory predictions about how learners process and retain visual and auditory information. Learning styles-based instructional practices are common in educational environments despite a questionable research base, while the use of dual coding is less ubiquitous, and thus measured examination of the two methods has implications for practical application. The study involved 204 university students who were surveyed on their preferred learning style and then presented with information that they were prompted to process via either imagery or linguistic means. The results showed there was no significant interaction effect between learning style and condition, suggesting the most basic prediction of the learning styles hypothesis should be rejected. In a regression analysis, none of the four learning styles (visual, auditory, read/write, or kinesthetic) predicted students’ retention of the material. However, there was a highly significant main effect of condition with those in the visual condition retaining twice as much information as those in the auditory condition regardless of learning style, a result that strongly supports dual coding theory. Implications of the findings would suggest that learning styles instruction is an ineffective method for teachers to employ, and that, instead, incorporating principles of dual coding would have a much greater benefit to student learning.

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