Current research on learning styles of gifted learners

Throughout the last five decades in educational research, there has been an ongoing dialogue surrounding the different ways students, of all ages and ability levels, approach the learning process, and whether these differences should be reflected in the pedagogical process. Additional to this has been the controversy surrounding the validity and reliability of such research studies, which either support or refute the idea that by teaching to these learning approaches, there will be greater academic gains for all learners than is experienced through traditional teaching methods. In reverse to this, students may therefore experience varying levels of underachievement if teaching and learning approaches do not include acknowledgement of their learning styles. A further layer of complexity to these discussions is related to the learning styles exhibited by gifted learners, as different from their same age average or lower ability peers, and whether the recognition of these styles has an even greater impact on their performance levels than their average ability peers (Sak, 2004).