Learning styles of medical students - implications in education

Abstract

Background: The term "learning style" refers to the fact that each person has a different way of accumulating knowledge. While some prefer listening to learn better, others need to write or they only need to read the text or see a picture to later remember. According to Fleming and Mills the learning styles can be classified in Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic. There is no evidence that teaching according to the learning style can help a person, yet this cannot be ignored.

Subjects and methods: In this study, a number of 230 medical students were questioned in order to determine their learning style.

Results: We determined that 73% of the students prefer one learning style, 22% prefer to learn using equally two learning style, while the rest prefer three learning styles. According to this study the distribution of the learning styles is as following: 33% visual, 26% auditory, 14% kinesthetic, 12% visual and auditory styles equally, 6% visual and kinesthetic, 4% auditory and kinesthetic and 5% all three styles. 32 % of the students that participated at this study are from UMF Craiova, 32% from UMF Carol Davila, 11% University of Medicine T Popa, Iasi, 9% UMF Cluj Iulius Hatieganu.

Discussions: The way medical students learn is different from the general population. This is why it is important when teaching to considerate how the students learn in order to facilitate the learning.

Keywords: learning styles; medicine students.

Fig.1

Distribution of number of learning styles each student prefer

Fig.2

Distribution of learning styles among students that prefer only one learning style

Fig.3

Distribution of combinations of learning styles among students that prefer equally two learning styles

Fig.4

Distribution of learning styles

Fig.5

Origin of the medical students that participated in this study