Learning Style Preferences of First-Year Residents in Various Medical Specialties in Ramathibodi Hospital, Thailand

Abstract

Background: Learning styles preferences play an important role in helping learners acquire knowledge. Because each individual establishes different learning styles, knowing students’ learning preference may help instructors design appropriate teaching methods which aids students to achieve learning outcome more effectively. Objective: To determine the learning styles in first-year residents of various medical specialties, using the VARK model. Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study recruited all first-year residents of academic year 2021 to 2022, at Ramathibodi Hospital. Ninety-five residents gave their consent and submitted the VARK questionnaire. The results were classified into 3 groups of specialties, based on its major characteristics being surgery-based, cognitive-based, or diagnostic-procedure-based. Results: The VARK preferences in the surgery-based group were as followed; 7.9% aural learners, 26.3% kinesthetic learners, and 65.8% multimodal learners, with none being visual and read/write learners. In the cognitive-based group, the VARK preferences were 7.7% visual learners, 19.2% aural learners, 3.8% read/write learners, 19.2% kinesthetic learners, and 50.0% multimodal learners. In the diagnostic-procedure-based group, the VARK preferences were 8.3% visual learners, 37.5% kinesthetic learners, and 54.2% multimodal learners with none being aural and read/write learners. Conclusions: The VARK preferences showed that Ramathibodi’s overall first-year residents were mostly multimodal learners with the surgery-based and the diagnostic-procedure-based groups having more kinesthetic preference learners in their specialties.