Learning Style Preference and Its Correlation Toward Academic Performance Among First Year Medical Students

Abstract

Background: Learning styles are various ways of acquiring knowledge and important due to its contribution to the learning process' outcome and students' academic performances. This study aims to find out the correlation between learning style preference and cognitive academic performance of medical students. Methods: A cohort study using The Honey and Mumford's Learning Style Questionnaire was conducted to first-year medical students during their first semester at Udayana University, Bali. Mean of four academic blocks’ final assessments (multiple choice questions) represented the cognitive academic performance. Data were analysed using univariate and bivariate analysis (Spearman correlation). Results: There were 219 students who fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Each student can have more than one learning style preferences. There were 33.3% students with a very strong preference for theorist learning style, followed by activist (30.6%), reflector (27.9%), and pragmatist (14.2%). Mean of final academic blocks’ assessments had positive correlation with reflector (r=0.227, p<0.001) and theorist (r=0.135, p=0.045) learning style. However, a negative correlation was found with the activist learning style (r=-0.267, p<0.001). No correlation was found between the academic blocks’ assessments and pragmatist learning style. Conclusion: Medical students with reflector and theorist learning style tend to have better cognitive academic performances compared to other learning styles. This study should be taken into consideration in providing the most suitable teaching methods for medical students based on their various learning style, especially for the ones with activist learning style which in this study had lower cognitive academic performances. Keywords: learning style, medical student, academic performance, cognitive outcome