Advances in the technology available for the design and delivery of online courses, together with the increasingly diverse learning needs of students, have encouraged a stronger focus on instructional design that is more closely aligned to learner requirements and contexts. The 21^st century learner is accustomed to acquiring information in a variety of ways and technology can support a learning environment for these digital learners by accommodating differences in individual styles and preferences. Learners have a dominant and several subdominant learning styles they use when studying new information. This pre-experimental study used the Canfield Learning Style Inventory to identify the dominant and subdominant learning styles of 109 students and for creating individualized learning pathways. The effect on performance of following a learning pathway that included the participant's dominant learning style was compared to performance when the learning pathway included the dominant learning style plus one to three subdominant learning styles. Sixty-nine students successfully completed the study and the results showed a statistically significant improvement in test scores following instruction in all four dominant learning style groups. No statistically significant differences were found between the 16 pathways. However, significant academic improvements were found for learners with a dominant learning style of iconic and direct experience when one or more subdominant learning styles were included in the pathway. The findings from this study confirmed that addressing differences in learning styles results in improved test scores; therefore, instructional activities should be created to match a variety of learning style preferences.