Analyzing the Role of Learning Styles, Cognitive Flexibility, and Intrinsic Motivation in Predicting Sustainable Academic Success
Keywords:
learning styles, cognitive flexibility, intrinsic motivation, sustainable academic success, students, qualitative research, TehranAbstract
This study aimed to explain Tehran high school students’ lived experiences of how learning preferences and strategies, cognitive flexibility, and intrinsic motivation contribute to sustainable academic success. This qualitative study was conducted using thematic analysis. Participants included 22 upper-secondary school students from Tehran, selected through purposive sampling with maximum variation in gender, grade level, school type, and academic performance status. Data were collected only through semi-structured interviews. Inclusion criteria were at least two continuous years of secondary school attendance, experience of sustained academic effort or achievement, and willingness to participate voluntarily. Interviews continued until theoretical saturation was reached; saturation occurred at the twentieth interview, and two additional interviews were conducted to confirm the stability of the emerging categories. Data were analyzed through open, axial, and selective coding using NVivo software. Credibility was enhanced through member checking, peer review, researcher reflexivity, and preservation of an audit trail. Thematic analysis led to the identification of five main categories: strategic and multimodal learning, cognitive flexibility in response to academic difficulties, intrinsic motivation and ownership of learning, sustained feedback-oriented self-regulation, and contextual support from school and family. The findings indicated that sustainable academic success is not primarily the product of a fixed learning style. Rather, it emerges from students’ ability to shift flexibly among learning strategies, reinterpret academic failure, maintain internal interest in learning, manage time and effort, and use feedback constructively. The results suggest that sustainable academic success is a multidimensional phenomenon shaped by the interaction of learning preferences, cognitive flexibility, intrinsic motivation, and supportive educational contexts. Educational interventions should therefore move beyond rigid learning-style labeling and instead promote strategic flexibility, self-regulated learning, intrinsic interest, and supportive classroom climates.
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