LEARNING STYLE PREFERENCES AMONG UNDERGRADUATE MEDICAL STUDENTS OF LAHORE, PAKISTAN: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

Abstract

AbstractBackground and Objectives: Learning styles is one of the key predictor for academic success of students.This study was conducted with objectives to assess the learning styles of medical students using the VARKQuestionnaire and to study factors related to their learning style preferences.Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study, using the validated 16-point VARK Questionnaire Version8.01, was conducted among medical students in Lahore, Pakistan, from May to October 2023. Through nonprobability virtual snowball sampling, 360 students from various medical colleges responded to onlineGoogle forms distributed via emails and WhatsApp groups. Data were entered, cleaned, and analyzed usingStatistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 26. The Chi-square test determined associationsbetween variables, with a significance level set at p < 0.05.Results: The respondents had a mean age of 21.56±1.608. The study found that 68.9% preferred a unimodallearning style, with visual (25%) being the most favored, followed by read/write (15.2%), aural (14%), andKinesthetic (13.5%). No statistically significant relationships were found between learning style and gender,clinical year, schooling background, or institute type. However, significant relationships were found withage, academic performance, and preferred teaching methodology (p=0.05, p=0.04, and p=0.007,respectively).Conclusion: The present study highlighted the independence of learning styles from demographics. Theidentified relationship between learning styles, preferred teaching methodologies, and academic performanceemphasizes the significance of this knowledge for medical educators and students in fostering lifelonglearning. It is noteworthy that majority ofstudents demonstrated unimodalsensory preferences, reinforcing theimportance of tailored teaching strategies to maximize learning potential.Keywords: Learning, style, VARK, Medical Education, Teaching Methods, Medical Students