Do students have preferred learning styles and, if so, can these preferences -- in addition to other abilities and attributes -- influence their performance in post-secondary education? There is a significant body of literature, across many disciplines, endeavouring to answer this question. In this paper, we examine a variant of this question with respect to the discipline of economics: to what extent do instructors' attributes and preferred learning styles also influence student performance in principles of economics courses? Employing the VARK (visual, aural, reading/writing, and kinesthetic) learning style preference methodology, we find evidence that student performance can be significantly influenced by (i) students who have a visual learning preference and (ii) instructors who share a preferred kinesthetic learning style with their students.