Learning Style Preferences of First Year Medical Students of a Rural Medical College, West Bengal, India

Sanhita Mukherjee, Siddhartha Das, Sunanda De, Diptakanti Mukhopadhyay

Abstract: The goal of this study was to determine preferred learning styles of first year medical students of BankuraSammilani Medical College, Bankura, a rural medical college of West Bengal, India. Methods: A cross sectional study of first year medical students with 65 male and 30 female (n=95) was performed. The validated VARK questionnaire Version7 was used to categorize the preferred mode of learning styles of students. Descriptive statistics were used to identify the learning styles of the students. Results: 95 %was the response rate.84.21 % of students preferred multiple learning styles. Among multi modal learners bimodal learners (32.63 %) surpass quad modal (30.52 %) and tri modal (21.05 %) learners. The most preferred combination of learning style among bimodal students were Auditory-Kinesthetic (9.47 %) and Kinesthetic- Reading/Writing (9.47 %). Conclusion: The result of this study shows that most students of this medical college are able to learn effectively as long as the teacher provide a blend of visual, auditory, reading/writing and kinesthetic activities

Keywords: First year medical students, learning style, learning preference, the VARK, rural medical college