• Corpus ID: 51395811

Survey of research on learning styles

@article{Dunn1989SurveyOR,
  title={Survey of research on learning styles},
  author={Rita Stafford Dunn and Jeffrey S. Beaudry and Angela Klavas},
  journal={Educational Leadership},
  year={1989},
  volume={46},
  pages={50-58}
}

• R. Dunn, J. Beaudry, A. Klavas
• Published 1989
• Education
• Educational Leadership

R esearch on learning styles has been conducted at more than 60 universities over the past dec ade. These investigations have yielded useful findings about the effects of environmental, emotional, sociologi cal, physiological, and cognitive pref erences on the achievement of students. Learning style is a biologically and developmentally imposed set of personal characteristics that make the same teach ing method effective for some and inef fective for others. Every person has a learning style—it's as individual as a signature. Knowing students' learning styles, we can orga nize classrooms to respond to their in dividual needs for quiet or sound, bright or soft illumination, warm or cool room temperatures, seating arrange ments, mobility, or grouping prefer ences. We can recognize the patterns in which people tend to concentrate best—alone, with others, with certain types of teachers, or in a combination thereof. We become aware of the senses through which people remember dif ficult information most easily—by hear ing, speaking, seeing, manipulating, writing or notetaking, experiencing, or, again, a combination of these. Learning style also encompasses motivation, on-task persistence versus the need for multiple assignments si multaneously, the kind and amount of structure required, and conformity versus nonconformity. When a Na tional Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) Task Force (1983) examined all the characteristics that influence student achievement, intake preferences (individual needs for eat ing and/or drinking while concentrat ing) achieved the highest reliability. Chronobiology is also pan of style: some people are "morning people", some are "night owls." There are only three comprehen sive models of learning style (Hill et al. 1971, Keefe et al. 1986, Dunn et al. 1975, 1979, 1981, 1985); others ad dress only one to four elements, usu ally on a bipolar continuum. Although various scholars define the concept differently, only a few learning style identification instruments are reliable and valid (Curry 1987).