Abstract:

Introduction: Medicals students are being exposed to different learning environments, at the same time receiving vast extents of information. The information on learning style can also benefit the students by helping them to formulate appropriate learning strategies to enhance their learning. VARK is a questionnaire that determines a person’s sensory modality preferences.

Aim: The aim of this study is to identify the learning style preference among medical students in Malaysian medical universities.

Methodology: A descriptive cross sectional study was done in 2015. Convenience sampling was used to choose the sample population. Sample size was 239 students. VARK^© questionnaire Version 7.8 was used to assess the learning style among preclinical and clinical medical students from three medical universities in Malaysia. Questionnaire was distributed among students in the form of hard copy after taking an informed consent.

Results: Majority (53.61%) out of 97 preclinical students preferred unimodal learning style. 46.39% out of 142 clinical students had highest preference towards multimodal learning style. Kinesthetic was the mode of choice from the VARK component for both preclinical and clinical students. In multimodal learning style, trimodal and bimodal mode was preferred by preclinical and clinical students respectively.

Conclusion: Kinesthetic modality is the strongest single preference for both preclinical and clinical students. Preclinical students preferred unimodal learning style and clinical students preferred multimodal learning style.

Keywords: VARK, learning style, preclinical and clinical, gender, ethnicity

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