Learning Styles of Medical and Midwifery Students in Mashhad University of Medical Sciences

Abstract

Background: Students have individual learning style preferences including visual (V; learning from graphs, charts, and flow diagrams), auditory (A; learning from speech), read-write(R; learning from reading and writing), and kinesthetic (K; learning from touch, hearing, smell, taste, and sight). These preferences can be assessed using the VARK questionnaire. Purpose: We aimed to assess different learning styles of medical students in our collage. Methods: This study was conducted to describe learning styles of 214 Medical and Midwifery students in Mashhad University of medical sciences. By using the English version of the VARK questionnaire, we measured the difference in learning styles of medical students and midwifery students and compared with 57336 global general students who completed the test in VARK website up to Sep 2007. Results: The dominant learning preference of our students was Aural preference (30.8%) followed by Read/Write (20.6%), while (7.5%) were in Kinesthetic and (5.6%) were Visual learners; still most of the students (35.5%) represented a multimodal learning preference. No significant difference was found between males and females. The general pattern between medical student and Midwifery student is the same. There was a significant relation between Internship Entrance Exam score and the learning styles of medical student and who were more Read/Write got higher scores. Conclusion: Knowing that our students have different preferred learning modes will help medical instructors in our faculty develop appropriate learning approaches and explore opportunities so that they will be able to make the educational experience more productive. Key words: MEDICAL EDUCATION, LEARNING MODELS VARK, VISUAL, AUDITORY, READ-WRITE, KINESTHETIC, SSTUDENTS.