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In the fall of 1988, 79 students at the University of Nevada School of Medicine were administered two learning-style inventories: the Lancaster Approaches to Studying Inventory (LASI) and the Inventory of Learning Processes (ILP). Students' scores on these scales were examined in terms of the theoretical distinction between deep and surface approaches to learning. The data provided strong support for this distinction, with the scores on learning-style measures correlating as expected. The relationships between the students' inventory scores and their scores on two measures of academic performance were also examined. Correlations between measures of learning style and academic performance yielded low, nonsignificant positive correlations and were found to be inadequate predictors of academic performance. Implications and possible explanations for these findings are discussed.

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Several recommendations for improving dean's letters are discussed, including the following: (1) all dean's letters should be formatted according to the AAMC guidelines; (2) each school should have one person responsible for central overview of the school's letters; and (3) for comparative performance information, schools should at least give the percentages of grades given in the required clerkships, and it would be preferable for them to employ systems that group students into four to six groups and to indicate the percentage of students in each group.

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