Assessment of Preferred Learning Styles of Medical Students at Wah Medical College Using VARK Questionnaire

Abstract

Objective: To assess the distribution of different learning styles and modalities among medical students and to identify any underlying association of socio-demographic characteristics of students with their preferred learning styles. Study design and setting: This is a cross-sectional survey which was conducted among medical students of Wah Medical College, Wah Cantt, for a duration of three months i.e. May 15th, 2023 to August 15th, 2023. Methodology: 271 students meeting the inclusion criteria were selected using the convenience sampling technique. Our data collection instrument was a questionnaire which consisted of two portions. The first portion was about the sociodemographic profile of the participants and the second portion consisted of the VARK questionnaire. Data was analysed using SPSS (version 23). The chi-square test was applied to determine the associations. A p-value less than 0.05 was considered significant. Results: A total of 271 students submitted the questionnaire with a mean age of 20 ± 1.7 years. The majority were female (62.4%). Kinesthetic learning was opted by 60.5% of students while quad-modal, tri-modal and bi-modal learning was opted by 35.1%, 33.2% and 31.7% of students respectively. The difference in learning styles used by students of varied clinical exposure was established (p=0.01). Conclusion: The most preferred learning style was kinesthetic and the majority of the students used quad-modal learning. It is also concluded that there is a difference in learning styles used by students in the pre-clinical and clinical years of medical education.