Do you know your learning style? Free online assessment.

I think this learning styles thing has been blown way out of proportion. The students that I have had who had been taught this way have worked themselves into a little box that they can only learn one way and they refuse to try anything else — an anti-learning system.

Your test is trivial, superficial, and misleading.
I took it honestly, answering as best I could. Being limited to often, sometimes, and rarely did not allow me to give a truly fair answer to many of the questions; a five or ten point scale would allow a better picture. As usual, I scored high on almost all areas ( I tend not to pigeonhole easily, and I multi-task a lot). My scores were 26 visual-non-verbal, 24 visual-verbal, 24 auditory, and 18 kinesthetic.
These are a pretty fair representation of how I learn — I work on everything, although I prefer to understand first and act afterwards. A good analysis would recommend me to use a variety of skills to understand different kinds of materials. Your test, however, took a random two-point difference, a difference that could disappear another day when I judge the nuances of one question differently, and recommended me to use only visual-verbal approaches. Further, your recommendations for note cards, highlighting, etc., go completely against my effective learning styles (I have three bachelor’s degrees, a master’s, and halfway to a math doctorate, so I do know my effective styles!); and in fact these are approaches I disrecommend to my students because they are time-wasting and ineffective for anything but trivia.
I would not recommend this test to anyone for any serious educational ends.

I also didn’t think much of the test. I have taken some standardized one and I remember coming out strongly as visual. This one said I was “balanced”. I wouldn’t recommend it either. BTW, my scores came out almost identical to a previous poster. But I doubt the test has any validity or reliability as a test.

As for whether this learning style thing has anything to it or is over done. I think it might be useful. There are kids out there who are not ld, but who’s learning style and preference is just not auditory (which many schools are predominately). The child like this is typically more visual/kinesthetic. I have worked with ld kids with a strong preference also, it is helpful to know how they learn but I’m not sure you always need a test for it. These are often the really hands on learner types. Then there are high functioning autistic kids who we know are typically (but not always strongly) visual. Being aware fo this kind of thing is very useful in teaching them.

I do think there might have been a fad about this a few years ago. There were a lot of tests but that was about it.

—des