Study skills and strategies of the medical students among medical colleges in Mysore district, Karnataka, India

Abstract

Background: Study skills are discrete techniques that can be learned, usually in a short time, and applied to all or most fields of study. The approach students choose appears to be a central factor in determining both the quality and quantity of their learning. Learning styles influence the maintenance of information and the depth of understanding. Methods: A prospective interventional study was conducted among the medical students of phase-II, phase-III part-I and part II studying in government and private medical colleges. The data regarding socio-demographic characteristics like age, sex, religion, total family income, locality, phase of MBBS Course, state in India from which the student came and the learning skills were collected on a self-administered pre tested structured questionnaire, which will also include Study Skills Inventory tool. Paired t test for academic performance before and after intervention, Mann Whitney test for difference in mean ranks in study skill scores between Government and private colleges, spearman correlation for academic skills and study skill scores were applied. Results: The note-taking skills, memory skills and time management skills of private medical college students and their academic performance were correlated significantly. There was a significant improvement in the academic performance of private medical college students by 3.01 and government medical college students by 3.69 after the intervention. Conclusions: There was a significant improvement in the academic performance of both private and government medical college students after the intervention.