According to Farrell and Kotrlik (2003), educators can become more effective teachers by assessing their students' preferred learning styles. This assessment can help in planning the curriculum and in selecting appropriate instructional methods. Thus, research is needed to determine if there is a link between students' learning styles and their cognitive abilities such as spatial visualization. This article presents a study which determines whether novice drafters' ability to visualize three-dimensional objects and identify two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional objects were influenced by basic drafting instructional methods or the students' learning styles. The objectives of the study were to: (1) Compare novice drafters' spatial visualization ability with the methods of drafting instruction they received; (2) Compare novice drafters' spatial visualization ability with their preferred learning styles; (3) Compare novice drafters' spatial visualization ability with their prior instruction or experiences in drafting and/or art; and (4) Verify whether novice drafters' perceptual modality learning styles changed from pretest to postest. Study results showed a considerable difference in novice drafters' spatial visualization ability scores results when modality learning styles were addressed as part of the instructional process. The results also suggested that enrollment in prior CAD courses was not effective in developing novice drafters' spatial visualization ability. (Contains 7 tables.)