Learning Style Preferences among Allied Health Science Students using VARK Model – A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Learners exhibit diverse preferences in how they absorb information, influenced by factors suchas mindset, sensory abilities, and personal inclinations. Recognizing and accommodating these variedlearning styles is essential in selecting teaching methods that can effectively enhance the overall educationalexperienceThe learning preferences of paramedical, allied science andmedical students are diverse, posing a challengefor teachers to cater to all of them. VARK, which stands for Visual, Auditory, Read/write, and Kinaestheticlearning styles, is a learning inventory categorized under the "instructional preference" model.MethodsThis study was done to analyze the learning style and approaches to learning among the 392 Allied HealthScience students at Sree Balaji Medical College & Hospital, BIHER university Chennai using VARKquestionnaire version 7.8.Results: This study identified17 (4%) as unimodal and all of them preferred auditory modality, 77 (20%)trimodal, 3 (1%) quadrimodal and 295 (75%) bimodal.The trimodal styles include ARK,ARV,KAR,KAV,KRV,RAK,RAV,RKV,VAK,VAR,&VRK and the mostpreferred one among the trimodal style was ARK. The bimodal styles includeAK,AR,AV,KA,KR,KV,RA,RK,RV,VA,VK&VR styles. The most preferred among all the learning styles was AKstyle.Conclusion: Since the most preferred learning styles were kinaesthetic and auditory, the strategies ofteaching preferred by students could include recording lectures and creating audio recordings of PowerPointpresentations, as well as increasing the frequency of early clinical exposure to patients in hospital wards andusing models and problem-solving questionnaires. This will also enable teachers to align their lessons withthe students' needs and assist them in reaching their academic objectives