DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2015.v03i05.048

Pages: 2046-2051

Learning styles may be classified into four major sensory modalities – visual, auditory, read-write and kinesthetic, that one most prefers to use when internalizing information. The purpose of study was to evaluate the preferred learning style modality and to assess whether there was any difference in the learning style preferences among medical and allied sciences students. Total 273 first year students of various medical courses completed the questionnaire (113 M.B.B.S., 71 B.D.S., 68 B.Sc. Nursing and 21 B.P.T.) attending lectures in the Department of Physiology, Mahatma Gandhi Medical College & Hospital, Jaipur (Rajasthan) were included. Learning style preference was identified using the VARK online inventory developed by Fleming (1992). A questionnaire was also filled by the students which included their demographic profile, medical science stream and preferred sensory modality of instruction. Learning style of the students of various medical courses showed a statistical significant difference among both via Preferred (p<0.001) and VARK (p<0.0001). Within the group, VARK Preferred Sensory Modality was kinesthetic in M.B.B.S. (p<0.041), B.Sc. Nursing (p<0.001), B.D.S. (p=0.055) and B.P.T. (p=0.253) students. As per Preferred Sensory Mode, kinesthetic was the preferred mode in M.B.B.S. (p<0.163) and B.Sc. Nursing (p<0.0001) while auditory in B.D.S. (p<0.001) and visual in B.P.T. (p=0.281), respectively. The most common pattern was bimodal learning in students of various medical courses and statistically significant in M.B.B.S. and B.Sc. Nursing. Present findings suggest that kinesthetic was the preferred learning style by both Preferred Sensory Modality Preferences and VARK inventory tool, and was found to be statistically significant among the students of medical and allied sciences. The most common pattern was bimodal learning, with two dominant styles.