What the Science Says About Learning Styles and Effective Study Methods

Millions of students and teachers still sort learners into categories such as "visual" or "auditory" and try to tailor lessons or study sessions to match. But cognitive scientists who have tested this idea in controlled experiments have not found that it works. What the research does support is a small set of specific study techniques that outperform the rest, regardless of a person's preferred style.

Why the "Learning Styles" Idea Persists Despite Little Evidence

A 2020 review by Phil Newton and Atharva Salvi of Swansea University, published in the journal Frontiers in Education, found that 89.1% of 15,045 educators surveyed across multiple studies believed students learn better when information is presented in their preferred learning style. Newton said there is no evidence that this belief is decreasing, even though the underlying claim has not held up in testing.

The testable core of learning-styles theory is what researchers call the meshing hypothesis: that matching instruction to a student's self-identified style produces better results than mismatching it. According to the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning at Yale University, studies dating from 2006 to 2023 have found no empirical support for this hypothesis — in some experiments, learners performed just as well, or better, when taught in a mode different from their stated preference.

The Swansea review describes the widespread belief in learning styles as potentially harmful: labeling a student as, say, an auditory learner may lead that student to conclude there is little point pursuing subjects or formats outside their assigned category, and may lead teachers to form inaccurate expectations of performance based on the label.

What Actually Improves Learning: The Dunlosky Review

The most frequently cited scientific assessment of study techniques is a 2013 review in Psychological Science in the Public Interest by John Dunlosky, Katherine Rawson, Elizabeth Marsh, Mitchell Nathan and Daniel Willingham. The team evaluated ten commonly used learning techniques against the available experimental evidence and rated each for overall utility.

Kent State University, where Dunlosky was based at the time, reported his reaction to the findings: he said he "was shocked that some strategies that students use a lot – such as rereading and highlighting – seem to provide minimal benefits," and suggested that simply replacing rereading with delayed retrieval practice would help most students.

A Practical Study Routine Based on the Evidence

1. Turn reading into retrieval: after reading a section, close the material and write or say what you remember, then check it against the source — this is practice testing.
2. Spread review sessions across days or weeks instead of massing them into one long session the night before a test; this is distributed (spaced) practice.
3. Mix related topics or problem types within a single study session rather than finishing one topic before starting the next; this is interleaved practice.
4. When learning a new fact, ask yourself why it is true or how it connects to what you already know — elaborative interrogation.
5. While working through a worked example or procedure, explain each step out loud or in writing, as if teaching someone else — self-explanation.
6. Use highlighting, rereading and plain summarizing sparingly: the Dunlosky review found they are commonly used but showed the weakest evidence of benefit on their own.
7. Do not assume a self-identified "visual" or "auditory" preference means you should avoid other formats; the Yale Poorvu Center recommends combining multiple formats (text, diagrams, speech) for all learners rather than matching a single preferred mode.

Do Learning Preferences Matter At All?

Researchers distinguish between having a preference and benefiting from having material matched to it. The Yale Poorvu Center notes that learners' preferences are real and can vary by subject, but that preference alone does not predict which format will produce better learning for a given person. Its guidance to instructors is to build variety into teaching — combining words, visuals and activities — and to help students develop metacognition, meaning the ability to monitor and adjust their own study strategies, rather than sorting students into fixed style categories.