Study Of Learning Style Preferences In Students Of Different Phases Of Medical Undergraduate Course In Relation To Gender And Academic Performance

ABSTRACT

Background: To become effective faculty, he should understand a learner’s characteristics and their learningstyle. Matching students’ learning styles with a learning framework has resulted in improved test scores. Thisstudy was initiated to identify the learning styles of MBBS students and explored the relationship betweenlearning style preferences and students’ gender and academic achievement.Methods: We conducted cross-sectional study on students from the medical college studying in MBBS second,final prof (part-I) and final prof (part-II). The VARK questionnaire was used to identify the learning style preference. Based on the instructions given for the VARK inventory, scores were calculated to determine the predominant learning modality used by each individual.Results: The students of MBBS showed multiple learning preferences (52%) only slightly more than unimodalstyle (48 %). None of the students showed quadrimodal learning preference.In 2nd professional students, readwrite was preferred mode followed by auditory while in final prof (both part 1 & 2) kinesthetic /read-writelearning style was preferred in unimodal types.Female students scored higher in all four components as compared to male students.There was no relationship between learning style preference and academic achievement.Conclusion: This study demonstrated that many medical students at this single medical institution prefer to learnusing all VARK modalities. There can be different type of learners in a single batch of medical students, soeducators’ awareness of various learning styles of students is a must. Identifying differences in learning stylescould potentially be used in medical curriculum.