Ambreen Khalid, Khalid Rahim, Zahid Bashir, Asif Hanif.
Learning style preferences among students of Shalamar Medical and Dental College, Pakistan.
Adv Health Prof Educ Jan ;1(1):13-7.

BACKGROUND Psychologists and researchers have discovered variations in learning styles of students across institutes, cultures and educational environments. Awareness of the predominant learning style will enable the facilitators to modify teaching methods and make the educational experience more effective. AIM This study determines the VARK inventory based learning styles of students at a private medical college in Pakistan and relates them with the teaching methods preferred by the students. METHODS A cross sectional study was conducted on 194 first and second year MBBS students, enrolled at Shalamar Medical and Dental College, Lahore. The version 7.1 of VARK questionnaire, was used to classify the learning preferences as visual (V), auditory (A), read and write (R) and kinaesthetic (K). Data was also collected about the students’ gender and their preferred teaching methods. RESULTS Only 36% of students preferred one learning style (uni-modal), primarily kinaesthetic, while the remaining students chose more than one learning style (multi-modal), where 44% were bi-modal, 15% tri-modal and only 5% were quadri-modal. The most and least chosen teaching methods were practical/dissection (38%) and tutorial (8%) respectively. Strong correlation was found between kinesthetic learners and those who preferred practical as teach- ing method. CONCLUSION Multiple modes of instruction will cater for needs of the majority of the learners. The teachers’ aware- ness about the preferred learning styles of the learners helps him to match it with modes of instruction to ensure a conducive learning atmosphere for the learners. KEY WORDS Learning style, Instructional method, Teaching-learning strategies, Medical students.

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