How to Figure Out Your Learning Style

Learn with your strengths.

Certain classes, subjects or concepts can be really hard to grasp. Plus, it’s extra frustrating when you’re having a hard time with a topic but everyone else is acing it.

Here's the thing: not everyone is going to learn in exactly the same way. So, sometimes it’s not the topic that you can’t understand, it’s the delivery.

We’ve all heard the old Albert Einstein quote: “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

So, your best chance at success is to find a learning style that best meets your strengths. Here’s how you can figure that out.

What are the learning styles?

Okay, so before we get into the nitty gritty details of each learning style, here’s a little bit of background on how they came about.

Back in 1992 Education Developer Neil Fleming and Higher Education Consultant David Baume released a study that described four learning modalities under the acronym VARK.

The acronym stands for each of the learning styles: Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing and Kinaesthetic.

They found that everyone has a preferred learning approach according to one or some of these styles. So, finding out which ones work best for you can significantly improve your learning and overall enjoyment at school.

Let’s break each of the types down.

Visual learners.

This first style might be an obvious one, but it essentially refers to students who best internalise information when it is presented in a symbolic or graphic way like with pictures, graphs, video, or charts.

In general, visual learners tend to do best when they are given all the information they need as a whole, rather than piece by piece, which is why diagrams and photographs work so well for them.

Auditory learners.

Next up is auditory or aural learners. These students learn best when they hear information, are presented with it vocally or are given the option to speak it out loud. Essentially, their ears are their strength.

Because auditory learners use their listening skills, they tend to take less notes in class, so as to not break their auditory attention. Students who learn audibly tend to also do best when discussing subjects with other classmates and hearing their interpretation.

Reading/writing learners.

Third on the list is reading and writing learners, who tend to do best in regular class situations due to their traditional reading/writing delivery.

In general, students who have a preference to reading and writing do well when presented with lectures, handouts and PowerPoint slides. 

They’re also the ultimate note takers as they recall more information by both writing and reading it back.

Kinaesthetic learners.

Finally, last on the list is Kinaesthetic learners, which is probably the least obvious (and trickiest to pronounce).

Kinaesthetic learners are students that synthesise information with their hands. They take a physical role in learning and use touch and other senses to take in information (this is hands down me).

Often referred to as ‘tactile learners’, these students work best with models, flashcards and practicing an action or task.

Because this is the least likely form of teaching in a traditional classroom, a lot of kinaesthetic learners tend to fall behind. However, with the right kind of techniques, kinaesthetic learners can succeed just as much as their other classmates.

Okay, but which learning style best suits me?

The thing with learning styles is that it’s not always black and white for everyone. For some people, their style is super obvious, but for others, they might feel like they use a mixture of styles.

What’s important to note is that you can be more than just one of these types. In fact, you could be all of them depending on your personal strengths.

But there are ways to figure out exactly which learning styles work best for you.

Firstly, you can take a look at all the traits of each learner and take a guess, ‘cos who knows you better than yourself?

Alternatively, if you’re looking for a more formal approach, you can take the VARK questionnaire.

The VARK questionnaire is a super simple, quick and easy test that asks you about 16 multiple choice questions about learning situations and preferences.

With this, you can get a more detailed idea of where your learning strengths lie so you can master your subjects.

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