Introduction:

Kolb establishes, according to his theoretical conceptions of learning, that there are four different learning styles or patterns: active, reflexive, theoretical, and pragmatic.

Objective:

To identify the fundamental learning styles of the medical students at Walter Sisulu University in South Africa.

Methods:

From the study population of 118 students, the sample was made up by 72 students of both sexes, enrolled in the first academic year of the medical major at Walter Sisulu University in South Africa. The 80-item Honey-Alonso questionnaire was applied to the students involved. The statistical analysis of the results was performed using the SPSS program, with the use of descriptive statistics, analysis of variance techniques, a general linear model, and cluster analysis. From the results, an index of the questions responded positively with respect to the total number of questions corresponding to each style was calculated.

Results:

Taking into account the results of the Honey-Alonso questionnaire, an index of the questions responded positively with respect to the total corresponding to each style was calculated. The active style index was 0.56, significantly lower (p<0.05) than the rest and there were no significant differences between the other styles in these students, nor in terms of sex.

Conclusions:

The theoretical, reflexive and pragmatic styles were more frequent in medical university students without differences by sex, and comparisons with students of higher years in this same career, or other medical faculties, could be of great interest.

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