Learning style preferences among first year and second year medical students: a cross sectional study

Background: Educational researchers have postulated that each individual has a unique learning style. Many methods are available for assessing the learning styles, with each method offering a distinctly different view of the learning style preferences visual, aural, reading and writing and kinesthetic (VARK)
Aim: To assess the learning style among first and second year medical students.
Materials and method: Two hundred MBBS students from first and second year were included and VARK questionnaire were administered which consisted of 16 questions with 4 options for each. The entire exercise was completed in 15–20 min.Hence, the modality that received the highest marks was the preferred sensory modality. Since students were free to select more than one option, multiple modalities of varying combinations could be obtained.
Results: Of 200 students, 100 each from first and second year were included in our study. The mean age of the participants was 20.9(standard deviation (SD) + 1.08) years.The majority (88%) of the medical students preferred multimodallearning styles. The most common VARK mode distribution among students was Trimodal (45%) followed by bimodal (40%), unimodal (12%), and quadrimodal (3%).Among the unimodallearners (12%), the majority of students preferred kinesthetic style (47%)Among multimodal learners, 45% weretrimodal learners with auditory- kinesthetic and visual types predominating.
Conclusion: Using the VARK questionnaire, we learnt that medical students differed in their learning preferences the preferred learning style of the medical students were trimodal. The correlation between students’ learning preferences and their academic performance is not well established