Learning Styles of Faculty Members

Abstract

Background: Given importance to learning and given priority to this point that human beings acquire more of their abilities and competencies through learning, learning styles are focused as a pivotal factor in realization of mental and potential abilities. Empowering academic members in the areas of teaching, scholarship, and leadership leads to the achievement of the missions and goals of the educational institutions; therefore, identifying their learning styles and providing training courses will become important. Methods: This is a systematic review that aims to study the learning styles of faculty members. Searching for articles was done online using Persian keywords and their Latin equivalents, including learning style, faculty members, Kolb, VARK, Reid�s perceptual learning style preference, Gregorc learning style, Marshall and Merritt learning style, the dominant pharmacy inventory learning styles, individually or in combination in national and international databases, regardless of limitation in time. In the initial search, a total number of 213 studies were found, out of which 15 studies that fully associated with the learning styles of faculty members were carefully reviewed. Results: The findings of the present study were categorized into four tools of Kolb�s learning style,  pharmacy inventory learning styles, Gregorc learning style, and Reid's perceptual preferential learning style, among which the dominant learning style of professors was converging and assimilating of Kolb tool, concrete-sequential of Gregorc tool, and assimilating of the pharmacy inventory learning styles tool. Conclusion: Awareness of different learning styles can be used to evaluate and design educational programs, and it is suggested to design empowerment courses of faculty members based on their learning styles.