After years of teachers telling students to turn off that music when studying it turns out that thumping music, snacks and dim light might make the ideal learning environment – at least for some people.

This was one of the findings in Bermuda College programme coordinator Ameenah Ahad's doctoral dissertation about student learning styles.

Dr. Ahad surveyed students and staff at the Bermuda College to write her dissertation.

"My research confirmed that there were significant differences in the learning styles of the participating students according to achievement levels, age, gender and major discipline," Dr. Ahad told The Royal Gazette.

Dr. Ahad and Dr. Sharon Parris, also of the Bermuda College, will be giving a presentation on learning styles in the college classroom and the Dunn & Dunn Learning Model at the upcoming Caribbean Area Network for Quality Assurance in Tertiary Education (CANQATE) conference next week. Their lecture will be called 'Learning with Style: Using Self-Knowledge to Empower Students'.

Dr. Parris is currently writing a book about the Dunn & Dunn learning model. This model looks at several learning atmosphere characteristics such as: bright lights, task consistency, noise level, snacking or eating, and overall concentration levels. It also looked at things like the student's response to authority, and whether they were independent of group learners, among other things.

During Dr. Ahad's research, students assessed their learning style through the Dunn & Dunn Learning Model and the Building Excellence tool.

"The Building Excellence Tool was designed for adults and can be taken online," said Dr. Ahad. "The results are accompanied by a comprehensive learning-style profile and planning guide.

"I have taught study skills for a long time," said Dr. Ahad. "Initially, I would say you have to have bright light in your study area. Then the students were coming to me and saying 'I can't study in quiet'. I thought maybe they were right, so I started saying you can have the sound, but you can't have the television."

Dr. Ahad's research showed that not everyone learns well in the traditional quiet study area; and many students may experience problems when their learning style is at odds with the educator's teaching style.

But just knowing what their learning style is, may help the student.

"I am looking at this with some emphasis on how students can use learning styles to empower themselves," said Dr. Ahad. "The best situation is to have a match between teaching and learning styles. I would never underemphasise that point and I advocate congruency when possible."

"But my purpose was not to advise each instructor to change their teaching style to accommodate each student. I wanted students to be aware of their own learning styles."

"Teachers can help by offering their students more choices, and institutions must be aware that environmental conditions can have a significant effect on students' learning. Factors such as lighting, seating, snacking while learning must be considered in the total learning environment."

There are four commonly accepted categories of learners: tactile, kinesthetic, visual and auditory. For example, one person may learn something better by touching and using their hands, than by being told, whereas another person might learn better with a picture or a map. The Building Excellence tool adds additional categories, such as verbal kinesthetic or tactual kinesthetic, among other things.

"A lot of mature students like to talk about what they are learning," said Dr. Ahad. "Having a study buddy or a group is a good thing for them.

"There are also tactual kinesthetic learners. These are people who like to put things together. Some people like visuals to go with their text such as graphs. Others like to hold a picture in their mind."

Dr. Ahad said during her dissertation work she learned a lot not only about her students' learning styles, but also her own way of absorbing knowledge.

"I would ordinarily have thought that I am a person who likes to see everything in order, the little bits," she said. "This is called an analytic learner.

"But as I think about it I like to see an overview first. I like to know what the whole thing is about. Then I would look at the parts. That is a global learner rather than analytic. We find in education a lot of times teachers are analytic and they tend to teach that way.

"And a lot of times students are global. That is one of the cross purposes of teaching and learning."

But Dr. Parris said many people aren't necessarily one style or the other, but an integration of different styles.

"There are many instances where people have both and are not clearly one or the other but a combination of the two," she said. "Mature learners may have come through the system and had to change in order to be successful."

Dr. Ahad found that in her sample, almost everyone was an analytic learner rather than global.

"I think the type of learner you are is determined by biology," said Dr. Parris. "It might change over time as we age."

Dr. Parris said that an older person may not be able to cope with low lighting in the same way that a younger person can.

"Through the Dunn & Dunn Model I have learned that to empower students I have to give up some power as a teacher," she said. "You no longer are the one person giving information. In actual fact, you are giving and receiving. You have to appreciate that the student is part of the team. You can not teach if people are not learning."

And this approach would work well in light of Dr. Ahad's study that found that the majority of students surveyed were non-conforming, rather than conforming.

"That is they don't acquiesce to the teacher's instructions because he or she is a symbol of authority," said Dr. Ahad. "Often the best way to motivate these students is to speak collegially to them, give them rationale for what they are doing and learning, and give them choices as to how they can complete the task."