Learning styles are described by Oxford, Holloway and Horton-Murillo (1992) as having four related elements or domains: cognitive, affective, behavioral, and physiological. Cognitive aspects involve preferred or habitual patterns of mental functioning such as memorization by rote. The affective domain reflects the attitudes and interests of the learner. Behavioral styles relate to tendencies of the learner to seek situations compatible with one's own learning patterns. Physiological elements involve sensory-motor and perceptual preferences such as visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactual tendencies.
Dunn and Dunn (1979) carried out extensive research related to learning styles as well. They also defined learning preferences within four basic elements: environmental, emotional, sociological and physical. Environmental elements that influence achievement include light, sound, temperature and design. Emotional elements are motivation, persistence, responsibility, and a need for structure. Sociological elements include working alone, working with peers, working with adults, or some combination. Within the physical domain, they found that 20 to 30 percent of school-age children are auditory. They learn and remember best what they hear. Approximately 40 percent are visual and remember best what they see. The remaining 30 to 40 percent are either kinesthetic, tactual or some combination of the four learning styles, for example visual/tactual,
Bill Haggart, designer of The PLS Student Learning Styles Inventory
(1995), the instrument used in this paper, cites similar results from his
research on student learning styles. Kinesthetic children make up 25 to
35 percent of the population and learn through large body movement and
physical activity using large muscle groups. Tactual learners comprise
15 to 25 percent. They learn more through body sensation, small motor muscle
movement and the emotions. Visual students, 35 to 40 percent, favor information
taken in by watching, reading and viewing pictures, videotapes and movies.
Approximately 10 to 15 percent of a population has an auditory preference.
They learn through participation in discussions, "thinking out loud" and
listening to what is said. About 10 percent will have no primary sensory
preference, but will be equally effective at learning in all of them. Haggart
notes,
"while students have the ability to employ all the senses, if left
to their own devices, they will favor and build skills in just a few. As
well, they will generally be more successful at learning through their
favored senses." (Haggart 1995, p.21)
Dunn and Dunn (1979), Oxford, Holloway and Horton-Murillo (1992), Haggart (1995) and others have made the important observation that most school learning occurs through students' senses: auditory, visual or kinesthetic and tactual channels. For the majority of students, one or two of these channels are more efficient than the others. Although ideally, students would function competently in any modality, in reality, they learn best when they are operating out of their strongest modality. Some students will only be able to learn through selected instructional methods which match their learning style.
It is also true that teachers tend to teach in ways that benefit certain styles of learning. This places some students at a disadvantage. For example, most teachers prefer language or text-based presentations (Dunn and Dunn, 1979; Dunn, Giannitti, Murray, Rossi and Giesert/Quinn, 1989; OíBrien, 1989; Oxford and Lavine, 1992; Oxford, Holloway and Horton-Murillo, 1992). Students may be experiencing problems because their learning styles do not correspond with the teaching style, not because of a lack of ability. These mismatches need to be addressed so that teachers can understand and adapt their teaching styles to better accommodate the range of learning preferences within a given classroom. The more resources and strategies that teachers have available to them, the more likely they will be able to do this.