Tertiary teaching in New Zealand/Educational culture in New Zealand/How do people learn?/Learning styles

Learning styles
Whilst the previous sections give us a general overview of how we people learn, it is important to remember that each learner is different. We all have our own preferences when it comes to learning that are influenced by the ways in which we think - our personalities, our backgrounds and our culture. In an attempt to capture and make sense of some of this, there are a large range of theories and models around learning styles and preferences. A popular model in the New Zealand context is the VARK – guide to learning styles. Neil Fleming has developed a tool to explore learning preferences that considers these in terms of the following modes of learning


 * visual
 * aural
 * kinaesthetic
 * reader/writer

Vark questionnaire

Download a copy

Vark categories

Understanding the results

Although they may have a preference, students will often utilise a variety of learning styles to enable their learning.

From a teaching perspective it is useful to be aware to students learning styles and make an effort to cater to a variety of these through using mixed teaching methods thus if teaching large numbers of students there is a greater opportunity to appeal to a wider range of learning styles.

If working with smaller numbers of students there is more opportunity to design teaching methods to better suit the needs of the smaller group.