Styles of practice: how learning is affected by students' and teachers' perceptions and beliefs, conceptions and approaches to learning

Abstract

This special edition of Research Papers in Education features the work of members of the Education, Learning, Styles, Individual differences Network, the only multi?disciplinary international research organisation specifically established to promote the importance of work on styles and individual differences within educational and workplace contexts. In the last six years, styles research has moved forward considerably, both conceptually and methodologically and in terms of its successful application within diverse learning environments (Evans and Cools, forthcoming; Evans, Cools, and Charlesworth 2010; Rayner and Cools 2011; Zhang and Sternberg 2009). In this editorial, styles research is used as an umbrella term to encompass cognitive styles, learning styles, approaches to learning, as well as student and teacher beliefs and conceptions of learning and teaching. In so doing, we are highlighting the need to consider more integrated models of styles dimensions that have the potential to capture major individual differences in the way people go about learning (Vermunt and Endedijk, forthcoming). In our work, and building on that of Rayner (2000) and Nosal (1990), we have confirmed the complexity of styles by acknowledging the multi?faceted nature of an individual's personal learning style (Evans and Waring 2009) and the hierarchical nature of styles (Kozhevnikov 2007), respectively.