Learning Style And Learning Styles

There has been much research on individual differences, looking at language aptitude, personality-the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, physical preferences, affective variables like anxiety, motivation, and self-efficacy (Ehrman & Leaver, 2003), learning styles, learning studies, gender, culture, and age (Ehrman, Leaver, & Oxford, 2003). In the literature, one will notice that the terms learning style, cognitive style, personality type, sensory preference, modality, and others are frequently used interchangeably (Ehrman, Leaver, & Oxford, 2003).

It is known that cognitive styles are an important part of learning styles (Shi, 2011). Learning style, refers to an individual’s cognitive style, a link between cognition and personality. In an educational context, learning style is suggestive of the preferred way of approaching

One of the most widely known concepts in learning styles is learning modalities (a combination of perception and memory). This theory suggests that all learners have preferred way of receiving and storing information through different sensory modalities: visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic (BECTA, 2005). Some examples of style dimensions are the following: Field Dependent-Field Independent (Witkin & Asch, 1948a, 1948b); Impulsivity–Reflectivity (Kagan, 1965), Wholists-Analyst and Verbal-Imager (Riding 2001?). Riding and Rayner (1998) commented that cognitive style is an individual preferred and habitual approach to organizing and representing information, which subsequently affects the way in which one perceives and responds to events and ideas (Pitta-Pantazi & Christou, 2008). Sternberg and Grigorenko’s definition of cognitive style is the following: “a bridge between what might seem to be two fairly distinct areas of psychological