Learning Styles Are Not a Thing — and That's Actually Good News

You’ve probably heard it. Maybe a teacher said it to you, or you did a quiz online that announced, with great confidence, that you are a “visual learner.” Perhaps your brother is “kinaesthetic” and your mum is “auditory.” It feels true. It feels useful. It also, I’m afraid, isn’t real.

I want to explain why — because once you stop believing in learning styles, learning actually gets easier.

What the idea claims

The “learning styles” theory says each of us has a preferred channel for taking in information — usually visual, auditory, or kinaesthetic (moving and doing) — and that we learn best when teaching matches our preferred channel. Show a diagram to a visual learner and they’ll thrive. Make them listen to a podcast and they’ll struggle.

It sounds sensible. The trouble is, when scientists actually test it, it doesn’t work.

What the evidence shows

In 2008, four respected psychologists led by Harold Pashler did something nobody had bothered to do before: they looked carefully at every well-designed study claiming to prove learning styles existed. They were searching for what’s called the meshing hypothesis — the idea that matching teaching style to learner style improves results.

They found almost nothing. The handful of studies done properly showed no benefit at all. As the authors put it in their review, “at present, there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice.”

Later work by Philip Newton in 2015 found that despite this, the myth was “thriving” — the vast majority of recent education papers were still treating learning styles as fact. A 2020 study published by the American Psychological Association went further, showing that most people believe learning styles are essentially fixed at birth, like eye colour.

Having a preference is real. Learning better from it is not. I prefer chocolate to broccoli. That doesn’t make chocolate more nutritious.

Why this is good news

If learning styles were real, you’d be stuck. Born a “visual learner”? Tough luck in a lecture. Born “kinaesthetic”? Hope your exam involves Lego.

But because they aren’t real, you’re free. You can learn from anything — a book, a video, a conversation, a diagram, a song, a walk around the kitchen muttering facts to yourself. The best way to learn something usually depends on what the thing is, not what kind of learner you are. You learn the shape of France from a map. You learn how a poem sounds by hearing it. You learn to ride a bike by riding a bike. Match the method to the material, not to yourself.

What actually does differ between learners

People genuinely do differ — just not in the way the posters claim. What matters far more is:

• What you already know. The more you know about a topic, the easier it is to learn more about it.
• How motivated you are. Caring helps. A lot.
• How well you manage your own learning — noticing when you’re confused, choosing better strategies, not kidding yourself that you’ve understood when you haven’t.

Those are the real differences. And unlike “learning styles,” every single one of them is something you can improve.

Bin the quiz. You’re not a visual learner. You’re a learner. That’s a much more powerful thing to be.

References

1. Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). “Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence.” Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(3), 105–119. Read the paper (PDF).
2. Newton, P. M. (2015). “The Learning Styles Myth is Thriving in Higher Education.” Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1908. Open access.
3. American Psychological Association (2019). “Belief in learning styles myth may be detrimental” — summary of Nancekivell, Shah & Gelman (2020), Journal of Educational Psychology.

Further reading

• Daniel Willingham’s short, sharp YouTube explainer on learning styles — a cognitive scientist’s FAQ for parents and teachers.
• The University of Michigan’s Roundup on Research: The Myth of ‘Learning Styles’ — a useful jumping-off point if you want to dig further into the evidence.
• Willingham, D. T. (2021). Why Don’t Students Like School? (2nd ed.) — chapter 7 is the clearest popular treatment of why “differentiating by style” misses the point.