LEARNING STYLES OF UNDERGRADUATE MEDICAL STUDENTS, TRENDS & IMPLICATIONS

Background and Definition: Learning style is an individual's unique approach to learning based on strengths, weakness and preferences. There are many different learning style models some of which are David Kolbe's model, Peter Honey and Alan Mumford's model and Neil Flemming's VARK model which is what we will be using for our research. Material and Methods: A cross sectional study of 44 undergraduate medical students was performed. The VARK questionnaire was used to categorize the learning style of students. The questionnaire consisted of 24 items which identify four different learning styles; visual, aural, read/write and kinesthetic. Results: Only 36% student preferred only one learning style (uni-modal), primarily kinesthetic while the remaining students chose more than one learning style (multi-modal), where only 16% were bi-modal, 39% were tri-modal and 41% were quad-modal. Conclusion: The students in study preferred diverse multimodal learning styles which were unevenly distributed, kinesthetic being the most common and read/write as the least common. The teacher’s awareness of the preferred learning style of the learner help him to match it with modes of instruction to ensure a conductive learning atmosphere for learners. Keywords: Learning styles, trends and implications, undergraduate medical students, VARK questionnaire, academic performance