Learning Styles and Willingham’s Learning Theory

What does the learning-styles approach claim?

People often have preferences about how they study. One pupil might enjoy discussing a topic, while another prefers drawing a mind map. The learning-styles approach goes further than recognising these preferences: it claims that pupils learn more effectively when teaching matches their preferred way of processing information.

This distinction matters. Enjoying a diagram does not necessarily mean that it produces better understanding or recall than a written explanation. The matching claim needs evidence about what pupils actually learn, not just what they like.

Verbalisers and visualisers

Verbalisers prefer to process information through spoken or written words. They may favour discussion, written notes, repetition or mnemonics. For example, ‘Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain’ uses the first letters of words to help recall the colours of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Within the learning-styles approach, a verbaliser would be expected to prefer a written description over a diagram.

Visualisers prefer to process information through pictures and visual features such as shape, colour and layout. They may favour mind maps, graphs and diagrams, or imagine places and characters while reading. Within the approach, a visualiser would be expected to prefer a diagram over a written description.

Suppose two pupils are revising memory. One talks through the stages aloud; the other draws a labelled diagram. These choices suggest different preferences. They do not, on their own, demonstrate that either pupil would learn less successfully using the other method.

Willingham’s scientific criticism of learning styles

Daniel Willingham is a cognitive psychologist who argues that teaching should be guided by well-designed scientific research into the mind and brain. His central criticism is that there is no convincing evidence that matching teaching to a preferred learning style improves learning.

To test the claim, researchers would need to identify pupils’ preferences and compare their learning under matched and non-matched teaching. Both verbalisers and visualisers would need opportunities to learn through words and through pictures, followed by a fair assessment of recall or understanding. The crucial result would be that verbalisers benefit more from verbal teaching, while visualisers benefit more from visual teaching. If diagrams help everyone, that supports the usefulness of diagrams for that task—not the existence of separate learning styles.

Pashler et al. (2008) reviewed learning-styles research and found insufficient evidence meeting the necessary standards to support matching. Massa and Mayer (2006), who tested verbalisers and visualisers, found no benefit from matched instruction. Willingham also points out that people may use their preferred way of thinking when given a choice without performing better through it.

He does not argue that all pupils are the same. Pupils differ in interests, prior knowledge and abilities, and these differences can affect learning. Ability concerns what someone can do; style concerns how they prefer to do it. A preference for pictures is therefore not the same as a strong spatial ability.

Is there anything useful about learning styles?

The approach encouraged teachers to move beyond verbal-only teaching and use a wider variety of explanations and activities. Words and diagrams together may make an idea clearer, while revisiting an idea may strengthen learning. These are useful possibilities, but they do not establish that teaching works because it matches individual styles.

There are also practical difficulties. Coffield et al. (2004) identified 71 different learning-style theories, showing the lack of agreement about how styles should be classified. Trying to identify and cater for every proposed style would take considerable time without a demonstrated learning benefit.

A justified conclusion is that varied teaching can be valuable, but fixed learning-style labels are not a sound basis for deciding how each pupil must be taught. Lack of supporting evidence is not absolute proof that every possible learning-style theory is false. However, it is a strong reason not to rely on matching when better-supported approaches are available.

Willingham’s recommendations: praise and memory

Willingham’s Learning Theory is best understood as a collection of evidence-based recommendations rather than one single explanation of learning.

For praise, he recommends recognising effort rather than labelling a child as naturally able. Praise works best when it is unexpected, rather than something a pupil works solely to obtain. If praise becomes an external reward, it may reduce intrinsic motivation—the desire to do an activity for its own sake. Lepper et al. (1973) found that children rewarded for drawing subsequently drew less, supporting this concern about rewards.

For memory, Willingham emphasises retrieval: accessing stored information. Forgetting can occur because the information is still stored but the right cue is missing. A ‘tip-of-the-tongue’ experience illustrates the feeling of knowing something without being able to retrieve it.

Tulving and Psotka (1971) found that providing category names as cues restored recall of words participants had apparently forgotten. This supports learning useful cues alongside new information. For instance, organising examples under a meaningful category can give you a route back to them later.

He also recommends retrieval practice. Trying to recall an answer without looking at your notes practises accessing information, whereas rereading mainly presents it again. Regular testing can therefore improve long-term memory more effectively than rereading alone.

Self-regulation and learning

Self-regulation means controlling your behaviour, emotions and attention. In a classroom, it can involve staying focused despite distractions or managing frustration when a task is difficult. Willingham argues that these skills can be taught and are more useful for explaining school success than learning-style labels.

One part of self-regulation is delayed gratification: resisting a smaller reward now for a larger one later. In Mischel’s marshmallow task, a child could eat one marshmallow immediately or wait until the researcher returned and receive two.

Shoda et al. (1990) found that children who waited longer later performed better at school as teenagers. This suggests a connection between early self-regulation and later achievement. However, Watts et al. (2018) found that the relationship was much weaker once family background was taken into account. The findings therefore do not show that waiting longer itself causes better school performance.

Neuroscience and support for learning difficulties

Willingham also considers how neuroscience might help education. Willingham and Lloyd (2007) discussed differences in patterns of brain activity between children with and without dyslexia, a learning difficulty affecting reading.

If relevant patterns could be identified reliably and early, they might help children receive specialist support before they fall behind. This is a potential application, not a claim that a brain pattern alone provides a certain diagnosis. Learning difficulties have multiple influences, so relying on one pattern could lead to misidentification and a lasting, inaccurate label.

Evaluating Willingham’s approach

A major strength is its use of scientific evidence rather than assuming that a popular classroom idea must work. Its recommendations also have practical applications: teachers can build in retrieval practice, use praise carefully and help pupils manage attention and behaviour.

However, being evidence-based does not make every recommendation equally secure. Research must be interpreted cautiously, as the influence of family background on delayed-gratification findings demonstrates. Neuroscience findings also need reliable links to educational needs before they can guide decisions about individual children.

Finally, the approach brings together separate findings about praise, memory, self-regulation and the brain. This makes it useful as classroom guidance, but difficult to test as one unified theory. Overall, Willingham offers a stronger scientific basis for teaching than learning-style matching, while particular recommendations still need careful evaluation.