Learning Style for First Year Saudi Medical Students at Qassim University: Gender Differences

Aims: Studies on learning preferences of medical students in Saudi where medical education, as well as the environmental education, differ greatly from Western countries are limited. Students have preferences for the modes in which they collect information. The objective of this study was to categorize learning preferences of Qassim University’s male and female medical students.

Study Design: A descriptive cross-sectional study.

Place and Duration of Study: First-year medical students at Qassim University Medical College, between March 2015 and June 2015.

Methodology: The visual, auditory, reading/writing, kinaesthetic (VARK) survey categorises students’ favourites for certain modes of information presentation. The VARK survey was distributed to our first-year medical students, and 75 of 150 students (50%) returned the surveys completed.

Results: The majority of male (92.47%) and half of the female (50.09%) students prefer a single mode of information presentation. Male and female showed similarly preferences in all modes of information presentation, including visual learning from diagrams, graphs, and flow charts, auditory learning from verbal expression, and reading/writing learning from texts, but kinaesthetic learning from hands-on, demonstration and sight. In kinaesthetic, female (40.14%) showed more preference than male (28.04%). In contrast, most female students (49.91%) and a few male students (7.53%) preferred multiple modes whereas male (53%) and female (47%) showed similarly preferences in the bi-modal. Male students (23%) showed greater preference of tri-modal than female (13%), in contrast to the female students (40%) showing more preference of the quad-modal than male (24%).

Conclusion: Knowing student’s preferred modes can a) assist in providing appropriate instructions that are personalised to the student’s individual requirements, b) conquer the tendency of treating all students in an analogous mode, and c) encourage instructors to move from their favoured mode(s) to using others.