Visual Learning Style: Learning by Seeing

What the visual style describes

People who identify with the visual style say they understand and remember better what they see represented: a diagram, a chart, a map. It is the V in the VARK model by Neil Fleming and Colleen Mills (1992).

It often combines with other styles: many visual learners are also strong in the reading/writing style and take notes that mix text and diagrams. If you’re not sure which one dominates in your case, the learning style quiz measures it in a few minutes.

A useful nuance: the visual style refers to external material, what you see on the page or screen. It is independent of the ability to see images with your eyes closed, which varies widely from person to person, as we explain in the article on aphantasia.

How it usually shows up

Someone with this style studying the circulatory system will probably prefer a diagram of the heart’s chambers and the path of the blood to the same content described in a paragraph. The pattern repeats:

• They easily remember where something was on the page or the whiteboard.
• They spontaneously draw or sketch when trying to explain something complex.
• They notice the difference most with abstract content: a concept with a diagram, however simple, seems clearer to them.

What research says about matching

The big question about any style is whether people who prefer it learn more when the material is matched to it. Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Doug Rohrer and Robert Bjork (2008) reviewed the literature and found no well-designed experiments demonstrating it.

The clearest study for the visual style comes from Polly Husmann and Valerie O’Loughlin (2019). They asked 426 anatomy students about their VARK result and how they studied outside class:

• Most did not study in line with their own style.
• Final grades were not related to scores in any of the four VARK categories.
• Students who studied “in sync” with their style did not get better grades.
• Some specific strategies, such as using the course’s virtual microscope, were linked to better results regardless of each person’s style.

Why words plus pictures help almost everyone

The fact that matching doesn’t work does not mean images are useless. They help, and for almost everyone.

Allan Paivio’s dual coding theory, summarized for education by James Clark and Paivio himself (1991), proposes that memory works with two connected systems, one verbal and one for images. An idea stored with both a word and an image has two access routes instead of one. That is why concrete words, which are easy to picture, are remembered better than abstract ones.

Richard Mayer reached a similar conclusion from dozens of experiments on multimedia learning: people learn better from words and pictures than from words alone, as long as the picture explains something and isn’t decorative. This multimedia principle shows up in students of every profile, not only those who call themselves visual.

Drawing diagrams or testing yourself

Concept maps are the signature technique of the visual style. Jeffrey Karpicke and Janell Blunt (2011) compared them with retrieval practice: students who, after reading a science text, tried to recall it in writing without looking learned more than those who spent the same time building a concept map with the text in front of them. The advantage held even when the final test consisted of drawing a concept map.

The practical takeaway is not that diagrams are pointless, but when to make them: a diagram drawn from memory, with the book closed, is both a visual exercise and retrieval practice. Making good diagrams is also a skill that improves with practice, in line with what Carol Dweck describes as a growth mindset.

A study in Ecuador, read carefully

A team from the Technical University of Ambato (Pazán Torres and colleagues, 2017) gave 40 seventh-grade students, aged 10 to 14, a program of visual activities: spotting differences between pictures, solving mazes, building mind maps, memorizing observed objects. They measured long-term memory before and after and concluded that it had improved significantly.

It is worth reading carefully, because it illustrates the limits of this kind of research well:

• There was no control group, so the improvement could be due to the passage of time, practice with the test itself or any other activity during the school year.
• All students did the same activities, whatever their style, so the study does not compare visual learners with non-visual ones.
• The 21-day duration was justified by Maxwell Maltz’s book Psycho-Cybernetics, the origin of a figure that, as we explain in the 21-day myth, has no experimental basis.

It is useful as a classroom experience, but it does not allow the improvement to be attributed to the visual activities.

An example of what does work

A high school student who describes himself as a visual learner is studying the Krebs cycle. Coloring in the textbook diagram is enjoyable for him, and that counts for keeping his interest up. What will help him remember it most, according to research, is closing the book, drawing the cycle from memory, checking what he got wrong and repeating it a few days later. It would work just as well for a classmate who sees herself as an auditory learner.

This article summarizes research on learning for informational purposes; it does not replace guidance from a professional if there are vision or learning difficulties.

Sources

• Clark, J. M., & Paivio, A. (1991). Dual coding theory and education. Educational Psychology Review, 3(3), 149-210. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01320076
• Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Random House.
• Fleming, N. D., & Mills, C. (1992). Not another inventory, rather a catalyst for reflection. To Improve the Academy, 11, 137-155.
• Husmann, P. R., & O’Loughlin, V. D. (2019). Another nail in the coffin for learning styles? Disparities among undergraduate anatomy students’ study strategies, class performance, and reported VARK learning styles. Anatomical Sciences Education, 12(1), 6-19. https://doi.org/10.1002/ase.1777
• Karpicke, J. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2011). Retrieval practice produces more learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping. Science, 331(6018), 772-775. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1199327
• Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multimedia Learning (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511811678
• Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(3), 105-119. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01038.x
• Pazán Torres, J. C., Pullas Tapia, P. S., Núñez Hernández, C. E., & Zamora-Sánchez, R. (2017). Estilo de aprendizaje visual: una estrategia educativa para el desarrollo de la memoria a largo plazo. Revista de Estilos de Aprendizaje, 10(20), 240-261.