According to Gulbahar and Alper (2011), learning styles are referred to as the ways people “receive and process information” or the means of “perceiving, processing, storing, and recalling attempts in the learning process”, whereas learning preference is “the choice the individual makes for one learning situation or condition over another” (Cahill & Madigan, 1984). Learning styles and learning preferences tend to increase the quality of learning, and no single preferred learning style works for everyone. There are basically five different learning preferences: visual, aural, read/write, kinesthetic, and mixture or multimodal (VARK Learning Styles, 2015), and different strategies can be applied to each learning preference. Individual with visual preference learns best when information is presented in maps, diagrams, charts, and graphs. Individual with aural preference learns best from lectures, tapes, discussion, and speaking, and individual with read/write preference learns best when information is in words, whereas individual with kinesthetic learns best with experience, examples, practice and application. Individual with mixtures is multi-dimensional, and one style is insufficient (VARK Learning Styles, 2015). An individual can particularly be strong in one preference, for example, read/write preference. With this individual learning can be best accomplished by using printed words such as lists, dictionaries, handouts, textbooks, and notes. Learning strategies for this preference can be writing out words repeatedly, reading notes repeatedly, and organizing diagrams, graphs, or charts into words or statements (VARK Learning Styles, 2015). Because this individual with read/write preference or learning style learns best by words, teaching strategies for other people may be focused on the same preference, which may affect their learning.
Because each individual has