Thinking

• In a 1997 issue of "Exceptional Children," Elena L. Grigorenko and Robert J. Sternberg of Yale University presented the findings of their study to determine how thinking styles influenced academic success. They tested students to determine their thinking styles and then rated the students' academic abilities.
  
  Their study found that, of the 11 different thinking styles, three were the most indicative of academic performance. Students who displayed judicial, executive or legislative thinking styles were most likely to perform well in school. Those with a judicial thinking style are very analytical and enjoy evaluating problems. An executive thinking style reflects an affinity for structure and guidance when solving problems. Individuals with a legislative style of thinking are independent and prefer to create their own solutions.
  
  

Learning Types

• The term "learning types" refers to the emotional connection a student has to learning; essentially, it addresses how a student perceives the act and concept of learning. Rasimah Aripin, of the Universiti Teknologi MARA, and her colleagues studied the correlation between learning types and academic performance and discussed their findings at a 2008 Malaysian conference.
  
  They tested students to determine their learning type and then rated their academic abilities. Their research found that while there was no strong correlation between academic achievement and any one learning type, there was some correlation between two of the learning types and higher grades. Participative learning types, those who enjoy learning and feel responsible for their own learning, and independent learning types, those who think for themselves and enjoy working alone, were the most likely to demonstrate high academic achievement.
  
  

Learning Styles

• The term "learning styles" refers to the ways in which students learn. The four different learning styles are visual, auditory, writing and tactile. Harold Pashler of the University of California at San Diego and his colleagues conducted a literature review to determine if students' academic achievement would be affected by teaching styles that matched the students' learning styles. The review, published in a 2008 issue of "Psychological Science in the Public Interest", stated that there was no correlation between tailoring an academic program to fit a student's learning style and improved academic performance.
  
  

Memory

• Working memory, a type of short-term memory that allows for information to be processed and maintained, is another important facet of student success. A literature review conducted by Susan E. Gathercole, Emily Lamont and Tracy Packiam Alloway, and published in the book "Working Memory and Education," determined that students with lower working memory capacities were unable to perform complex memory tasks, such as remembering words from recently heard sentences, and demonstrated poor academic abilities.
  
  

Counselor Intervention

• Greg Brigman and Chari Campbell of the Florida Atlantic University studied the effect that counselor interventions and treatments had on students' cognitive abilities and subsequent academic performance. They provided specialized training to school counselors that focused on developing students' cognitive and social abilities and also tested students' academic abilities before and after the counselor interventions. Their results, published in a 2003 issue of "Professional School Counseling," showed that the students' cognitive skills, like memory and critical thinking, and their academic performance improved after the counselor interventions.