Tailoring Your Study Habits To Your Learning Style

One of the biggest misconceptions that people have when it comes to learning is that we all learn in exactly the same way. The truth is that there are four primary learning styles that are very different, and that recognising the way that you learn is a big step to ensuring that you succeed – in exams, in class at school age, and later on, if you decide to go onto further education, or to re-enter the education system at any time.

Learning styles – which one suits you?

Ask yourself – what is your own preferred learning style? Which classes or lessons did you do best at?

Was it the ones with lots of hand on experiments and practical sessions? Did you prefer really talking sessions where ideas were voiced out loud and discussed? How do you feel about book based sessions? Do you prefer to read information as a way of ensuring that it ‘goes in’? Or do you prefer a more visual kind of learning, one which involves charts and diagrams, pictures and images rather than words?

Whichever way you choose, it is a perfectly legitimate choice, as these are all real learning styles.

What are the learning styles?

The four main learning styles are visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic ( the VARK acronym). Some argue that there are now 7 different kinds of learning style. but for this post I am going to stick to these four, as I feel their is overlap with the other three, linguistic, logical and intrapersonal. Each is perfectly legitimate and can work well, but identifying your personal style is important if you are going to achieve your best results, as it is linked to how you both gain, and retain, relevant facts and information.

Recognise your learning style

Teach.com gives us a great overview of the four VARK learning styles.  From this list it should be easy to identify which one best suits how you learn. Look for what is comfortable for you, and how this could change the way you revise.

If you can identify your learning style, you can adapt your revision to this. For instance, if you prefer visual learning, you should use diagrams and graphs. Things like speech balloons and cartoons can also help retain the information. Auditory learners can make recordings of their notes that they can then replay and listen to in order to revise. They could also listen to useful podcasts. Those who love reading and writing can make traditional, pen and paper notes that can then be referred to. A kinesthetic learner can try to relive the lesson experience by redoing an experiment, trying to recreate the original experience in order to digest it more fully. Watching things on podcasts and fun revision programmes online can also help.

However you digest and process information as part of the learning, there is a learning style out there for you. You just need to recognise it and adapt your learning to it.

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