Table 9.

Why Learning Styles is not used

Theme	Ideas mentioned	Example
Lack of awareness	Educators simply don’t know about Learning Styles	“not aware of Learning Styles. 20 years’ experience of teaching”
Lack of evidence	Unwillingness to incorporate a teaching method with a poor evidence base	“I thought the literature suggests Learning Styles has not been validated with evidence…just talked about a lot so many people believe it”
Logistics	Time constraints and clinical commitments; inability to apply individualistic methods in clinical setting; large class sizes	“service commitments eclipse any time to take this sort of approach. Combination of methods naturally used in clinical teaching”
Targeted curriculum	Healthcare education is based on fixed learning outcomes and pre-set curricula, Learning Styles not part of this curriculum	“I usually have an hour max and a curriculum point to hit in that time…..Format of the teaching I deliver—very curriculum / target based”
Not the educator’s responsibility	It is a learner’s job to identify and understand their own learning preferences, not the teacher’s	“I would also argue that, dealing with adult learners, it is the learner's responsibility to know their own learning style rather than mine to spoon feed them”