Learning styles of medical students.

Abstract

Objective: To assess the various learning styles of fourth year medical students using VARK inventory. Study Design: Descriptive Cross-sectional study. Setting: Department of Community Medicine, Lahore Medical & Dental College, Lahore. Period: May to July, 2022. Material & Methods: Study was commenced after obtaining permission from 2022 VARK Learn Limited to use the VARK inventory and after review by IRB, LMDC. Study tool used was questionnaire with the VARK inventory version 7.8. The VARK inventory is a pre-tested and validated tool developed to assess learning styles of students on basis of visual, aural, read/write and kinesthetic styles. Data entry and analysis was done using IBM SPSS software version 21. Students were grouped according to learning styles as well according to number of preferred styles (uni-modal and multi-modal). Comparison of student gender and pre-medical qualification against learning style were performed using chi-square test. Results: Amongst the participants 52.1 % were female while 84% of students had completed their FSc before admission to MBBS. It was seen that that most commonly favored learning style was Kinesthetic mode (n=133) followed by auditory (n=131), then 108 visual learners and only 88 read-write learners. Results showed that only 2 participants were uni-modal learners while the remaining 98.6% of students were multi-modal learners. Amongst the multimodal learners, 40% were quadra-modal learners, 40% tri-modal learners and 19% bi-modal learners. Conclusion: In conclusion, multimodal learning approaches are the most preferred learning modality. This implies that both teachers as well as students should incorporate multiple learning styles in their teaching as well as learning process.