AbstractResearch by Pask has suggested that matching and mismatching teaching strategies with learners’preferred learning strategies may have considerable effects of learning. The study reported here sought to explore the extent to which a group of experienced and successful learners, such as postgraduate students, might be expected to be versatile learners, in the sense of being able to learn equally well from holist and serialist learning materials. Eighty‐three postgraduate students completed two questionnaires designed to assess learning styles. Twenty‐six students also took two tests designed to assess their competence in learning from materials designed to suit holist and serialist learning strategies. Only two out of 26 students scored equally well on the tests of holist and serialist competence. The study also examines the extent to which holist and serialist competence may be predicted by relatively‘quick and easy’questionnaire instruments. In 19 out of 23 cases such competence could be predicted from responses to a number of items from one of the questionnaires. Implications for further research are