Abstract
This article was migrated. The article was not marked as recommended. Stress is a psychological change that is becoming ever more frequent among medical school students than that of the general population, and these stress levels may affect academic performance. When the individual learning style does not fit into the method used by the student's university, the clash may become another stress factor. We evaluated preferred learning styles (Honey-Alonso Learning Styles Questionnaire) and stress levels (Lipp Inventory of Stress Symptoms for Adults) among medical students from two universities in the state of São Paulo that apply different teaching methods. The results showed that and the majority of the students were found to exhibit the reflexive learning style at both schools (60.4% at UNOESTE and 32.7% in FACERES) and high stress levels overall among the students (68.2% at UNOESTE and 74.0% at FACERES) in the resistance phase (81%), and there was a predominance of psychological symptoms of stress over physical symptoms at both universities (75.86% of students at UNOESTE and 86.48% at FACERES). Female students were found to exhibit higher stress levels than their male counterparts (72% and 55%, respectively). However, we didn´t find any statistical association between stress level and learning style. This is the first study to compare stress levels, learning styles, and teaching methodologies at two different medical schools.
Highlights
As fields of human knowledge have grown through research in recent years, there have been changes in the process of creating and transmitting information, changes which have affected learning and teaching strategies (Lewis et al, 2009)
A total of 135 medical students participated in this study, 50 of whom were from FACERES and 85 of whom were from UNOESTE
Most of the students at UNOESTE (60.4%) were found to prefer the reflexive learning style (60.4%), while the most preferred learning style among the FACERES students was reflexive (33%), followed by active (25%)
Summary
As fields of human knowledge have grown through research in recent years, there have been changes in the process of creating and transmitting information, changes which have affected learning and teaching strategies (Lewis et al, 2009). The traditional teaching model on which medical schools are based has long been used and is based on the Flexner Report from 1910 This method is composed of theoretical courses throughout the program and practical work in medicine starting in the third year of study. As more institutions began to transition from the traditional method to PBL, the mixed method was developed Today, this mixed method is used by a few medical schools in an attempt to capture elements of both methods: practical work is often introduced earlier in the program, but the students maintain their traditional theoretical classes with professors
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