Learning Style Preferences and Its Effect on Academic Performance Among Undergraduate Medical Students at Government Medical College, Palakkad

Abstract

Introduction: Learners have their own preferences in receiving and processing information. Finding out different learning styles of students is important to provide students with a better learning experience. Aims: To find out the different learning styles of students and association of gender and academic performance with learning styles. Methods and Material: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 100 medical students using convenience sampling method. The questionnaire used in the study was Honey and Mumford Learning Style Questionnaire. Learning styles were accordingly described as Activist, Theorist, Pragmatist and Reflector. Socio-demographic variables like age and gender as well as previous university examination score of the students were also collected. The data was analysed in terms of proportions, chi-square test and one-way ANOVA. Results: Out of 100 students, 74% were females and the remaining 16% were males. The highest mean value of the scores was found for reflector style of learning (15.59±2.4) followed by pragmatist (13.4±2.6). The lowest mean score was found for activist style of learning (12.26±3.0). 51.1% of students showed very strong inclination for activist learning style, 40% of students showed a strong inclination for reflector learning style, 45.6% had a moderate preference for theorist learning style and 55.6% of students had a moderate preference for pragmatist learning style. Conclusions: The students had more preference for activist and reflector learning styles. Gender and previous academic performance did not show any significant association with the learning styles. Keywords: Learning styles, Honey and Mumford questionnaire, Activist, Theorist, Pragmatist Reflector, academic performance