Research-Based Instructional Strategies

Program Matching Student Learning Styles
with Instructional Strategies

This software program is for practitioners in need of knowing which research-based strategies are most likely to be appropriate for students with specific learning-style strengths. It is intended to guide the successful implementation of differentiated instruction. Both experienced and novice educators will access instructional strategies and resources that are supported by statistically significant research that respond to the unique learning-style strengths of each student.

Theoretical Basis of the Dunn and Dunn Learning-Style Model

Four decades of translating the Dunn and Dunn Learning-Style Theory into practice have led to the development of a prescriptive software program matching students' learning styles with instructional strategies. This model theorizes the following:

•Most individuals can learn;

•Varied instructional environments, resources, and approaches respond to different learning-style strengths;

•There is no one best way to learn because everyone has strengths; different people have different strengths, therefore no learning style is superior to another. Individual instructional preferences exist and can be shown with reliable instruments (Burke, Gustaello, Dunn, Griggs, Beasley, Gemake, Sinatra, Lewthwaite, 1999-2000).

•Given responsive environments, resources, and approaches, students attain statistically higher achievement- and attitude-test scores in complementary, rather than dissonant treatments (Dunn & Dunn, 1992, p.6; 1993, p.6).

Furthermore, the model postulates that individuals have instructional preferences that can be measured reliably (Burke, Guastello, Dunn, et al; 1999-2000). For example, the most reliable instruments for testing young children (K-2) are the LSI-Primary Version (LSI:P) (Perrin, 1983, 1991) and Our Wonderful Learning Styles (OWLS) for grades 2-5 (Guastello & Dunn, 1998), Learning Styles: The Clue to You! (LS:CY), a globally formatted diagnostic survey, replaced the LSI (Dunn, Dunn, & Price, 1975, 1979, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1997, & 2000) as the major instrument for identifying the learning-style preferences of middle-school students in grades 5-8. High school students are diagnosed using Learning in Vogue (LIVES) (Missere & Dunn, 2005). Adults are administered either the Productivity Environmental Preference Survey (PEPS) (Dunn, Dunn, & Price, 1984, 1989, 1996, 1998) or globally formatted Building Excellence (BE) (Rundle & Dunn, 1997).

Depending on students’ learning-style preferences, the Dunn and Dunn Learning-Style Model recommends at least seven different methods that are effective for teaching new and difficult information (Dunn & DeBello, 1999). Those include Contract Activity Packages, Programmed Learning Sequences, Multisensory Instructional Packages, Small-Group Instructional Strategies, Tactual Resources, Kinesthetic Instructional Strategies, and Traditional Teaching for learners who perform well with lectures, discussions, and readings. Each of these methods is responsive to certain learning-styles characteristics but not to others. Researchers have been cognizant that when the learning styles of virtually every academic level, elementary to adult, were matched with complementary  instructional strategies from the Dunn and Dunn Model, statistically higher achievement-test scores were reported (Rochford, 2004).

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