Why your ‘study type’ may no longer matter – and what to do instead

Have you ever taken the time to pause, take stock, and think strategically about the way you work best? It used to be that successful learners had to find their own learning type and stick with it, but recently, there’s been a shift to a more holistic approach.

For example, it was once widely thought that if students knew which learning strategies best suited them, they’d learn more effectively and efficiently. So, from the 1980s, tailored learning approaches were fashionable, as educational theorists devised questionnaires to identify four main kinds of adult learners.

These were:

• Activists (those who learn by doing)
• Theorists (those who like facts and concepts)
• Pragmatists (those who experiment with ideas and the way they work)
• Reflectors (watchers and thinkers)

The idea was that you just had to find your own learning type and stick with it, and success would be yours.

Inevitably, however, and perhaps unsurprisingly, in reality things aren’t quite that straightforward. Over the years, a number of variations on this theme have been bandied around. But in more recent times, there’s been a definite shift in favour of a more holistic approach.

For example, Simon Gamble, an academic study skills developer who works in Bristol, told a national newspaper in one interview that, for example, just describing yourself as ‘a visual learner’ could be limiting and mean a student became stuck in a rut.

In any event, according to Gamble, everyone should be learning actively. For example, that could include imagining how you would teach a subject to someone else. After all, if you can clearly explain a particular topic to someone else, you can genuinely be said to have conquered it yourself. Conversely, if you wouldn’t be able to pass on your understanding of a topic to others, it would be hard to claim that you’d really got your head around it.

Of course, the way you study is obviously a highly personal matter, so you do still need to work out your own strengths and weaknesses. This will allow you to identify any barriers to efficient learning which may have been holding you up.

Getting ‘exam fit’

You can use your time judiciously to get yourself ‘match-fit’ for your next exam. While we’ve no doubt mentioned some of the following points before, it’s worth stressing them again:

• Have a timetable both for studying and other aspects of your life.
• Draw on any life experience which may stand you in good stead for your course, and don’t undervalue it.
• Remember that ‘quality’ breaks will maximise how effective your revision is. A full-on 20 minutes is much more productive than an hour spent being distracted.
• Split your ‘to-do’ list into urgent and routine tasks, keeping things realistic so that you don’t feel overwhelmed.
• Remember to keep testing yourself to reassure yourself that you have truly understood a particular topic.

So, rather than ponder or worry about what ‘learning type’ you may be, focus on the above.