In this paper the impact of two important factors - the learning styles and strategies - on study success in applied statistics is examined. The main question was to determine the effect of students' learning styles and learning strategies on their course performance in Quantitative Research Methods course. Also, the effects of students' prior knowledge in mathematics and statistics, their prejudices of statistics and their beliefs and perceptions of themselves as learners of statistics in relation to their learning styles and learning strategies was examined. The research was conducted in the spring 2003 in the Faculty of Education, at the University of Joensuu. The students, 200 in all, taking the course were mainly from teacher education degree programs. A pre-course questionnaire to measure students' learning styles and prejudices of statistics as a discipline and perceptions of themselves as statistics learners and a post-course questionnaire to measure learning strategies were administered to all participants. In addition, a diagnostic test to measure students' prior knowledge and a course exam were delivered. A 40-item learning style inventory was designed to identify each student's general learning style, i.e., to find out whether a student prefers to learn in a visual, auditory, tactile, etc. way. A 55-item inventory to measure the participants' course-specific cognitive and affective learning strategies was administered in the end of the course. The data was analysed by constructing dimensions of learning styles and strategies. The relationship of these dimensions to the course success was examined. Different kind of learner categories were identified, too, and the differences in the course success between different learner categories were analysed. Some results will be presented and their implications for the improvement of instruction discussed. Background of the study While research has informed us about numerous factors that result in success and failure respectively in statistics courses, unanswered questions still remain. Some of the factors that may be important to performance in statistics, are not yet much studied in the context of statistics learning. We also need more research because the scope of learning style conceptualisations, theoretical approaches and ways of measurement used in research are wide in variation. Those few studies reported in the sphere of statistics learning can only lightly touch this complex research area. Onwuegbuzie and Daley (1997), for example, suggests that learning styles play an important role in research methodology classes. Schutz and others (1998) examined motivation and learning strategies used by students in an introductory statistics course and provided mixed support for the use of deeper-level processing strategies. Bell (1998) has reported significantly higher grades for visual learners as compared to auditory and tactile learners in an applied statistics course. When examining learning styles our study used personality centred approach (e.g., Grigorenko & Sternberg 1995). We constructed a learning style inventory on the basis previous research on learning styles (e.g., Dunn, et al. 1989; Reid 19875). Learning style was defined as natural, habitual, and preferred way(s) of absorbing, processing, and retaining new information and skills and is comprised of both biological and developmental characteristics that make the identical instructional environments effective for some learners and ineffective for others. Learning strategies inventory was developed on the basis of literature on cognitive and affective learning strategies and statistics learning as well as our experience as statistics teachers. Learning strategies was defined as behaviours, steps, operations, or techniques employed by learners to facilitate the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of information. Research suggests that learning styles and strategies do not function separately from each other but learning style determines strategy use (Ehrman & Oxford 1990). According to literature, affective strategies include techniques for more effective time management and stress management; test anxiety reduction; and increased positive self-talk, self-monitoring, and self-coaching activities (e.g., Meichenbaum1977; Reid 1996).