Unfolding the Learning Styles Effect: Moderating and Mediating Pathways between Students’ Perceived Instructional Practice Effectiveness and Academic Achievement in Higher Education

The role of learning styles in the teaching-learning process has increasingly become a topic of debate. This study investigates whether it mediate or moderate the relationship between instructional practice effectiveness and academic achievement from students’ perspectives. Using a cross-sectional descriptive survey design, data were collected from 317 first-year students drawn from four universities through stratified simple random sampling. Data management and analyses were done using SPSS (v26) and RStudio, respectively. Findings showed that learning styles did not significantly mediate the perceived instructional practice effectiveness-academic achievement relationship. However, a partial positive moderating effect observed within the sequential-global learning modality. The findings revealed that learning styles exert limited influence on the instructional practice effectiveness-achievement relationship, implying that other factors may more robustly account in it. Therefore, it contributes to the ongoing debate surrounding the pedagogical relevance of learning styles and highlight the need for instructional approaches grounded in broader evidence of learning diversity.