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students with materials that matched their learning style, it might be better to encourage students to transform their materials into different formats themselves, as this would facilitate them in elaboratively processing the information. Since doing this research, learning styles have become a hot topic. In 2017, a large number of eminent neuroscientists and psychologists wrote to the Guardian newspaper (Hood et al., 2017), arguing that there is no consistent evidence to support learning styles theories, and suggesting that, in fact, it may be harmful to students because, by labelling them, some students may think that they are unable to change their learning abilities, which might impair their motivation to learn, and provide them with excuses for poor performance. By identifying with a particular learning style, students may be adopting a fixed, rather than growth mindset, and see themselves as incapable of learning in different ways. Instead, Hood and his colleagues suggested, it would be better to encourage students to reflect on what helps their learning, and to facilitate them in using better learning practices based on psychological evidence. As we have seen in this chapter, reflecting on what motivates you, applying cognitive strategies that aid elaboration, and learning collaboratively with others are likely to be more useful than trying to always work within your preferred learning style. Difficult Topics While differences between individuals are not very helpful in understanding what helps people to learn, it may be that thinking about the nature of the topic you are learning could be useful. Sometimes, no matter how motivated you are, or how good your study skills, it can just seem impossible to understand some topics. These sorts of troublesome issues can sometimes arise because we have failed to grasp (or have forgotten) an idea that is foundational to the topic we are trying to understand. For example, trying to understand how statistical tests like t-tests or ANOVAs work is very difficult if you don’t first understand the concepts of means, variance, and normal distribution. These foundational ideas been named threshold concepts. They were first described by educational theorists Jan Meyer and Ray Land, who described them like this: “A threshold concept can be considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something, without which the learner cannot progress. As a consequence of comprehending a threshold concept there may thus be a transformed internal view of the subject matter, subject landscape, or even world view.” (Meyer and Land, 2006, p 3). Threshold concepts, then, are transformational, and allow you to progress in your learning. If you have encountered a difficult topic, it is worth asking yourself if you might be missing some foundational knowledge that underpins the new concept that you are struggling to understand. Maybe you missed a class early in the course? Perhaps the concept was covered in a different module, and you have forgotten about it in the intervening time. Or maybe it is assumed that you know about it from previous educational experience, and this just is not the case for you. So how can you help yourself to overcome difficult topics? There are several strategies that might be useful. Firstly, start by looking at the terminology that is being used within your classes or textbooks. Are there some words and phrases being used that are never explained? This might suggest that the author or tutor is assuming you have some prior knowledge that you are missing; reading up on those phrases might help. Consider going back to basics, and find a book aimed at students at a

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