Using Learning Styles to Optimise Lecturer and Learner Experience and Results in an Institute of Education

The past decade of social policy making and legislative change in Ireland has led to a ‘broader range of individuals’ accessing higher education (ITB, 2006, HEA 2005, Duffin forthcoming). This means that class groups contain a greater range of diversity of learning behaviours than hitherto. The process of accommodating this range of learning behaviours within curriculum development and assessment poses a challenge for lecturers and students alike. This paper suggests how understanding the relationship of learning styles to cognitive processing can provide sound research support to the use of learning styles profiling to create conditions for optimal achievement in terms of student retention, attendance and achievement.