RESUMEN
Background: The study is designed to evaluate the different learning styles of the present first professional MBBS students. Students were requested to complete the visual-aural-read/write-kinesthetic (VARK) questionnaire at VARK-LEARN.COM. Results of the questionnaire were collected by email and analyzed using Microsoft Excel. We found that 68.2% had multimodal learning preferences and 31.7% had single learning preference. Aims and Objectives: The objective of this study is to analyze the different learning styles of MBBS 1st year students of United Institute of Medical Sciences, Prayagraj, using the VARK questionnaire. Materials and Methods: This study includes the informed consent taken from each student before participating. The Institutional Ethics Committee approved the study. Copyright permission was taken from the website vark-learn.com, from VARK Learn Limited, New Zealand. One hundred and two students had consented, and out of them, 85 students participated in the study. The students were asked to complete the questionnaire on the website. The data on their learning styles were collected and analyzed using Microsoft Excel. Results: Out of 85 Students, 58 (68.2%) had multimodal learning preferences. Of these, 28.2% of students had four-part VARK or quadrimodal preferences, 28.2% of students had bimodal, and 11.7% had trimodal learning preferences. Twenty-seven (31.7%) had single learning preferences, and, out of these 27 students, 17 (20%) had kinesthetic, 6 (7.05%) had visual learning preferences, and 4 (4.7%) students had aural learning preferences. Conclusion: With the help of this study, we concluded that most of the students who participated in our study are multimodal learners, and out of the students who had a single learning preference, most had kinesthetic learning preferences.
RESUMEN
Introduction: First-year medical students coming from different backgrounds and mediums of schooling have to cope up witha vast amount of information. Learning is influenced by the mode of input that has been presented to the students. They havedifferent learning styles and preferences as far as knowledge uptake is concerned. Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing, andKinesthetic (VARK) are among the known modes of information presentation.Purpose: The present study was aimed at checking out if the medium of instruction in schools affected preference in learningstyles among the 1st-year medical students. This could be of help probably in providing customized instructive plans if required.Methods: In the present study, 116 1st-year medical students from Grant Government Medical College coming from differentmediums of instruction in school were included and categorized as English medium (EM) and Non-EM (NEM). The standardVARK questionnaire developed by Fleming was used in the study to assess their learning preferences.Results: No significant difference in learning style preference for both EM and NEM was found in either multimodal or unimodallearners. Further breakdown of the multimodal learners into modality combinations, i.e., bimodal, trimodal, and quadmodal, too,did not reveal any significant learning style difference among the different mediums.Conclusion: As no significant difference in learning style preference among students from different mediums were revealedin the present study, there seems to be no need of personalized teaching strategy differences for the students coming fromdifferent backgrounds and medium of instruction.