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Ross Morrison McGill founded @TeacherToolkit in 2007, and today, he is one of the ‘most followed educators’on social media in the world. In 2015, he was nominated as one of the ‘500 Most Influential People in Britain’ by The Sunday Times as a result of…
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Do learning styles improve student achievement, and who should we believe?
Two major studies reach completely different conclusions about learning styles. One says ditch them. The other says they work. Who’s right?
Two studies. Two outcomes.
Two recent meta-analyses have tried to settle the decades-long debate about learning styles—and arrived at opposite conclusions.
Last week I summarised Hattie & O’Leary’s research (2025) reviewed 17 previous meta-analyses (n = 105,024) and concluded that matching teaching to learning styles had NO impact on achievement. Following this summary, a colleague shared this paper, a 2023 Turkish meta-analysis by Erdem & Kaf (n = 1,465) found a large positive effect (d = 0.926) from using learning-style-based instruction.
Who to believe?
Why learning styles remain popular
According to Hattie’s analysis, the problem isn’t learning preferences – it’s how they’re misunderstood. Teachers often confuse learning styles with strategies and end up planning lessons based on VAK (visual, auditory and kinaesthetic) quizzes that don’t correlate with actual learning gains. The idea is attractive because it feels personal and student-centred – but there’s no measurable benefit.
Erdem & Kaf’s study paints a different picture. They only included experimental studies where (Turkish) students were actually taught using methods tailored to their style (e.g., Kolb or Dunn & Dunn models). These weren’t just surveys or quizzes; they were carefully structured interventions. The results, especially in science and maths, showed significant gains in student achievement.
What should teachers do?
So, what should teachers do?
Hattie & O’Leary suggest abandoning the learning styles model entirely. They argue that it distracts from strategies that have strong evidence, like retrieval practice, self-questioning, and spaced learning. They encourage a shift towards metacognitive teaching—where students reflect on which strategies help them most.
Erdem & Kaf say the opposite: when done properly, adapting teaching to learning styles improves outcomes. They recommend continued use, particularly in STEM subjects, but acknowledge more cross-disciplinary research is needed. If learning styles are to be used, they must inform how students access material—not how content is delivered to them in rigid categories.
After further digging and evaluation, the Erdem & Kaf is based on studies in Turkey, and most importantly, on unpublished work, not peer reviewed. This means, even if the methods met scholarly standards for rigour and transparency, a global picture could be lacking when compared to the Hattie and O’Leary meta analysis which factors in 100,000 students and past, published research from across the globe.
I know what paper I would trust.
Both research papers conclude:
There is no support for the matching claim that students with different learning styles need different forms of teaching matched to their style. – Hattie & O’Leary (2025)
Learning-style based instruction makes a positive contribution to academic success in every field (E++ = 0.926). A highly statistically significant effect. – Erdem & Kaf (2023).
It’s not that Erdem & Kaf’s research is wrong, it’s that it’s an outlier in a much larger body of research that consistently finds learning styles have no measurable benefit. However, they may have a different opinion to me, which may explain why learning styles continues to be a prevailing myth.
Separating preference from practice
- Do teachers still use VAK/VARK surveys in planning?
- Are students being labelled by style or taught how to learn?
- Do classroom strategies adapt based on task, not preference?
- What’s the difference between a learning style and a learning strategy?
- How can SEND provision move beyond style-based assumptions?
- Are CPD sessions still promoting learning styles theory?
- Which research findings do teachers trust—and why?
- What might explain the cultural or educational differences between these two studies?
- Should learning preferences shape lesson access or lesson delivery?
- How do teachers make classroom decisions when research is conflicting?
