Matching instructors' teaching styles with students' learning styles

One approach that has been highly considered by teachers, administrators and researchers is matching instructors’ teaching styles with student’s learning styles. Charkins, O'Toole, and Wetzel (1985) studied approximately six hundred students and twenty teachers at Purdue University in the spring of 1982 in order to investigate link between teaching styles and learning styles and, if so, to determine the effect of that link on student learning on one hand and how it also affects learners’ attitude from the other. In their study, they suggested several major conclusions concerning course outputs and the divergence between learning style and teaching style. The larger the divergence between teaching style and learning style, the lower the student's gain in achievement. They also postulated that that the greater the divergence between teaching style and learning style, the less positive the student's attitude toward what the learners were studying.