Learning Styles v. Science of Learning — Who Has the Marketing Problem?
I still remember the first time I learned about learning styles. Well—technically multiple intelligences, but close enough.
It was my first job after college. I was an actor-educator at a theatre company in St. Paul, Minnesota—CLIMB Theater (shout-out!). During a staff training, we all took a multiple intelligences test and compared results.
My mind was blown! Up to that point in my life, I’d always felt a little “dumb for a smart person”—my own unfortunate phrase to explain away why I got a relatively low SAT score when I was 18.
Imagine my relief when the quiz revealed I wasn’t dumb at all. Turns out I scored the highest on two seemingly opposite skills — interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence!
What?! Whoa!! My people skills and love of reflection finally had a name—and value. Self-love rushed in. Sounds dramatic but it’s the truth!
Later, as a middle school teacher, I gave my students both the multiple intelligences and VAK learning-styles tests. I even kept a spreadsheet of who had which “intelligences” so I could plan lessons accordingly.
When I became an academic coach, I kept using learning style language, because students lit up when they found out what their “style” was. Honestly, learning styles was one of the best ways I knew to get students happily talking about learning.
So imagine my dismay when I began hearing that cognitive scientists were calling learning styles a neuromyth. Apparently, the idea that we learn best when we “learn according to our style” wasn’t true—and, in some cases, might even hinder learning. Egads!
Now as a trainer in the world of study skills and executive function strategies, I still find learning styles useful as a motivational tool, but I’ve deeply changed how I use them with students and educators.
After years of teaching with learning styles—and now years of teaching beyond them—I have a unique, and dare I say, insightful take on both their emotional pull and their pedagogical limits.
TL;DR
If you’re short on time, here are the main points we’ll be unpacking:
Preference ≠ performance. Most educators still believe in learning styles because they feel true—everyone notices their own learning preferences. But decades of research show that teaching to a student’s “style” doesn’t actually improve learning; it’s the strategies we use, not the style, that make the difference.
Science is clear—but not sticky. Evidence-based practices like retrieval, spacing, and interleaving work brilliantly, but they’re communicated in ways that sound sterile, technical, and effortful. Meanwhile, learning styles feel intuitive, identity-affirming, and caring—which makes them hard to quit.
We have a “sexy” alternative. The Study Cycle and Study Senses mini-lectures keep what’s emotionally true about learning styles (agency, simplicity, “I feel seen”) while aligning with how memory and motivation really work—helping students build study skills that stick.
This post will resonate most with:
Academic coaches, EF coaches, and tutors who want to replace the “learning styles” language with more accurate tools that make learning visible, actionable, and evidence-based.
Classroom teachers who are ready to make their instruction feel more coach-like by giving students language to reflect on how they learn, not just what they learn.
Learning specialists and teacher trainers looking to connect their intuition about student motivation with the latest findings from the science of learning.
If that sounds like you, you’re in exactly the right place. Let’s dig into the research and explore what to teach beyond learning styles.
🧪 Why Learning Styles Don’t Hold Up
First, let’s review what the science actually says.
The original promise of learning styles—sometimes called the “matching hypothesis”—was simple: if we teach students according to their preferred style (visual, auditory, kinesthetic), they’ll learn more effectively.
When researchers have tested this idea rigorously—by dividing students into style groups, teaching them in matching and non-matching ways, and measuring performance—they find no meaningful difference.
Back in 2009, Harold Pashler and his team took a hard look at the evidence for learning styles. They reviewed hundreds of studies and found that almost none were designed well enough to truly test the idea. And the few that were? Their results didn’t agree.
Fast-forward to today: A 2024 review in Frontiers in Psychology analyzed 21 studies with more than 1,700 participants. Only two showed even a small advantage for matching instruction—and the difference was so tiny it barely mattered.
So while the idea of learning styles feels true—and no matter how much we want it to be—the science keeps reminding us: our brains just don’t work that way.
🎭 If the Science Is So Clear, Why Won’t Learning Styles Die?
Okay, so the science is clear. Cognitive scientists and teacher trainers have been shouting it from the rooftops.
And yet—get this: A study from 2020 found that nearly 9 out of 10 teachers around the world still believe in learning styles. That’s more than 15,000 educators across 18 countries. Even after professional development explicitly debunks the myth, belief only drops by about a third.
So… what gives? Why does this idea have such staying power?
Part of the answer comes from John Hattie and Megan O’Leary, who revisited the research in a 2025 Educational Psychology Review paper. They found that much of what’s been labeled “evidence for learning styles” isn’t actually testing learning styles at all—it’s testing preferences.
In other words, when students say, “I learn better by watching videos,” they’re not describing a neurological style. They’re describing a preference—something that feels easier or more enjoyable in the moment. What helps them learn, however, isn’t the mode itself—it’s the strategies they use within that mode.
This nuance matters. The myth hangs on because it resonates with what students (and teachers) notice: “I like this way better.” And that’s true! But preference doesn’t equal performance.
But Hattie and O’Leary also point out something deeper—the identity effect. Learning styles stick around because they don’t just describe how we learn; they tell us who we are. Saying, “You’re a visual learner,” is really saying, “You belong here. You make sense.”
That emotional resonance is powerful, even if the mechanism is wrong.
No wonder the myth feels so good—and so hard to quit:
It feels intuitive. Everyone has preferences, and learning styles turn those preferences into a neat story about how learning “should” work.
It makes students feel seen. A style label provides instant recognition and belonging.
It makes teachers feel effective. Differentiating by style feels creative and compassionate, even when it’s not the right kind of differentiation.
It’s easy to implement. A quick quiz or color-coded chart offers the illusion of science and personalization.
It’s institutionalized. Teacher education programs, textbooks, and licensure exams still teach it.
It meets a real need. It opens the door to metacognitive reflection—something educators crave but often lack tools to facilitate.
And that last point is the one I understand most deeply. Educators don’t really want to diagnose students’ learning style; they really want to help students understand how they learn so they can take ownership of it.
Learning styles were never the problem—they were just an incomplete answer. They opened the right door but led us down the wrong hallway.
So what if, instead of throwing them out completely, we reimagined them? What if we kept the part that sparks curiosity—and replaced the myth with the science?
🔬 The Science of Learning Has a Marketing Problem
Lately, my social media feed has been full of science of learning champions bemoaning the fact that the learning styles myth just won’t die.
retrieval practice!
spaced repetition!
elaborative interrogation!
interleaving!
and more!
Yes, these are all excellent strategies that genuinely move the needle for student learning. (And I’ll be teaching about some of them during our upcoming masterclasses in the Anti-Boring Learning Lab; more about that later).
But let’s be honest—they sound flat. Even a little boring.
Where learning styles felt personal and identity-driven, the science can sound sterile—packed with technical terms that don’t exactly make a student’s eyes light up.
“I’m a visual learner!” feels fun and self-revealing.
“I need to do more spaced retrieval practice!” … not so much.
That’s the gap I keep seeing—and the one I’m trying to close.
The researchers are right about what works, but they haven’t cracked the code on how to make those ideas feel intuitive, emotional, and memorable in the way learning styles once did.
They’ve won the data, but perhaps they’ve lost the story?
Because here’s the truth: teachers and coaches don’t just want to be evidence-based; they want to be relationship-based. Students don’t crave more research—they crave resonance.
So how do we make the science of learning feel as human and hopeful as learning styles once did?
I have a hunch—and it includes something I call “the Study Senses.”
💡 How We Make the Science “Sexy”: The Anti-Boring Mini-Lectures!
So how do we make the science of learning feel as human, hopeful—and yes, even a little sexy—as learning styles once did?
That question has been at the heart of our experiments inside the Anti-Boring Learning Lab. We’ve spent years exploring how to teach brain science in ways that click—personal, visual, and conversational enough that students actually remember (and use!) what they learn.
The result is two frameworks that have become Lab classics: the Study Cycle and the Study Senses. Together, they turn cognitive science into something students can see, name, and apply in real time.
These frameworks are the backbone of what we call our Anti-Boring Mini-Lectures—short, visual, science-based lessons that make brain research stick.
Here is a glimpse of them, in my signature “hand-drawn on a whiteboard” style:
The Study Cycle
The Study Cycle is a simple, visual way to explain the least students need to know about how learning happens in the brain. It shows that mastering something isn’t a straight line — it’s a loop.
I know these three words don’t sound like the most exciting “marketing,” but that’s kind of the point. The power of the Study Cycle isn’t really in the image itself — it’s in how we use this image to explain and motivate students. The magic happens in the teaching. More about that in a moment!
When students first learn the above diagram, something clicks. They realize that learning isn’t about “getting it” once — it’s about cycling between two actions: encode, retrieve — and the power of doing it in anti-boring ways.
This visual turns an invisible process into something students can actually do. Suddenly, studying feels clear, concrete, and empowering.
(Science-of-learning geeks: You might notice “storage” isn’t labeled here, but is usually considered the second “step” in between encoding and retrieval. That’s intentional on my part — and the topic of an upcoming blog post! Join my newsletter if you’re curious and want the link when it’s live.)
The Study Senses
The Study Senses Mini-Lecture builds on the foundation of the Study Cycle.
I originally designed this model to counter a limiting belief I heard all too often from students when we discussed step 3 of the study cycle: how to encode in new ways
“I’m a visual learner—so if it’s not presented visually, I can’t learn it.”
Instead, the Study Senses teaches students that the brain process information in many ways—and four main ways include:
(1) Seeing (2) Hearing (3) Speaking out (4) Moving
Instead of learning in just one way (which is how students often interpret their learning style, it’s best for brains to learn in a variety of ways — often called multi-modal learning.
We often tell students — the more study senses, the better! (Which yes, is a bit too simple, but I have my reasons for that too — which, again, I’ll write about in a future blog. We have quite a line up for you!)
The Study Senses are also helpful if motivation to study is low. I’ll tell students: start with the Study Sense that feels most fun or natural (what we might’ve once called your “learning style”)—but don’t stop there. Add more senses to strengthen the neural pathways that will hold up under the stress of the test.
Together, They’re a Winning Metacognitive Team
Over the last decade, educators who join the Anti-Boring Learning Lab have been experimenting with teaching these two mini-lectures to neurotypical and neurodivergent students in classrooms and coaching sessions.
Over time, we’ve noticed something remarkable: students feel excited about learning
check all the same boxes that made learning styles so popular—only this time, they’re grounded in science.
They feel intuitive. When students see the Study Cycle and the Study Senses drawn out, it just makes sense. It matches what they notice about how learning works.
They make students feel seen. The Study Senses validate students’ natural preferences (“I’m visual!”) while encouraging growth beyond comfort zones (“Start with your favorite sense if you like, but then include others as you go. The more senses the better!”)
They make educators feel effective. As soon as students learn these two frameworks, they often change their classroom and at-home study behaviors quickly — which means that educators see effective learning in action, and can take credit.
They’re easy to teach—and hard to forget. You can explain both frameworks in minutes, but students reuse them for years as mental models for learning. Years after coaching, I’ve had students explain the mini-lectures back to me, crisp in their memory as ever.
They’re deeply student-centered. Both frameworks invite personalized experimentation: What works? What doesn’t? How will you adjust next time?
They spark real conversation. Questions like “Which Study Sense are you using right now?” or “Where are you in the Cycle?” become playful, low-stakes openings into metacognition and motivation.
Maybe we never needed to abandon what made learning styles appealing.
We just needed to translate that emotional resonance into something scientifically sound.
The Study Cycle and Study Senses do exactly that—they keep the best parts of learning styles (the self-reflection, the simplicity, the sense of ownership) and anchor them in how the brain actually learns.
And when students experience that shift—that “Ohhh, that’s why it sticks!” moment—the science suddenly feels pretty sexy after all.
🎓 Want to Go Deeper Into These Frameworks?
I’m aware I’ve just given you the bare minimum to describe these two frameworks. The purpose of this blog wasn’t to teach the Study Cycle or the Study Senses in full—but to spark dialogue about how we can make the science of learning stickier so it finally competes with the allure of learning styles.
If you’ve got your own ideas about how to make research resonate with real learners, I’d love to hear them in the comments below!
And if you’re curious to see what the Anti-Boring Mini-Lectures look like in action, here’s how you can explore these ideas further right now:
For free: Head over to our Visitor’s Center and watch a short video where I model how we teach the Study Cycle to students in ways that actually stick.
For a deeper dive: This October 2025, we’re offering two live masterclasses inside the Anti-Boring Learning Lab:
Beyond Flashcards — Learn to teach the Study Cycle Mini-Lecture
Beyond Learning Styles — Learn to teach the Study Senses Mini-Lecture
In both sessions, we’ll include (1) the science behind why it works, (2) exactly how to teach it to students in 15-minutes or less, and (3) 30+ strategies that put the science into action when teaching and learning.
You’ll see how to draw them, explain the brain science behind them, and adapt them for different ages or coaching settings.
Reading this after October 2025? Don’t worry—you can still dive in by joining the Anti-Boring Learning Lab. Members get access to all past trainings, live calls, and our ongoing community experiments about what makes learning stick.
👉 Join the Lab here and help us keep making the science of learning feel human—and maybe even a little sexy.
💭 Let’s Reflect Together
If you’ve made it this far—take a deep breath. You’ve just done some serious metacognitive work yourself.
The goal here isn’t to scold ourselves for believing in learning styles; it’s to notice what they gave us—clarity, connection, and confidence—and then build something even better in their place.
So before you close this tab, take a moment to reflect:
For educators and coaches:
What draws you to a particular teaching or coaching framework—its simplicity, its sense of care, or the connection it sparks with learners?
When a framework feels good, have you also checked whether it’s evidence-based? What might it look like to pair your intuition with the science of learning?
For students (or for how you frame this with them):
When a study strategy feels awkward or effortful, what might that reveal about how your brain is growing?
How can you celebrate curiosity over comfort in your next study session?
The science of learning keeps evolving—and so do we.
And that’s where the real anti-boring magic happens: in the questioning, refining, and sharing of what we’re all learning along the way.