Learning Styles of First Year Students of Dentistry And Its Application In Second Year Microbiology Teaching – Learning
Keywords:
Dentistry, Surveys and Questionnaires, Learning style, VARK.Abstract
Introduction: A student’s learning style is the preferred way in which information is processed and strategies are adopted for effective learning. The VARK survey instrument developed by Neil Fleming in, distributes the learning styles according to the sensory modes of perception i.e Visual / Aural / Read-Write / Kinesthetic. Objective: To know how students of 1st year dentistry learn and offer them academic support. Methods: After obtaining Institutional Review Board (Institutional Ethics Committee) permission, this qualitative, questionnaire based study was conducted for 1st yr BDS students. The VARK questionnaire version 7.8 (2014) was used due to ease of its administration .The VARK questionnaire along with the demographic data form and individual consent form was distributed to the students and they were asked to fill up the same. Results: The VARK mean scores showed that kinaesthetic preference ranked highest (7.02), followed by aural (5.84), read-write (5.14) and visual (4.74). Twenty seven students (62.8%) were multimodal while 14 students were (32.6%) unimodal. Conclusion: The learning preference showed a preference for multimodal pattern, typical of adult learners with preference for kinaesthetic mode.
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