e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning

6.2. Psychological Reasons for the Redundancy Principle

There is a common belief that some people have visual learning styles, while others have auditory learning styles. Therefore, it seems that words should always be presented in both spoken and printed form so that learners can choose the presentation format that best matches their learning preference. We call this idea the learning styles hypothesis because it plays on the common sense argument that instruction should be flexible enough to support different learning styles. Accommodating different learning styles may seem appealing to e-learning designers who are fed up with the "one-size-fits-all" approach and to clients who intuitively believe there are visual and auditory learners.