Introduction:

In the last three decades, the proposition that students learn by following different styles has become a prominent topic in pedagogy worldwide. In The Gambia, learning styles in medical students are not known.

Objective:

To characterize the learning styles preferred by the students of the School of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences of The Gambia.

Methods:

A cross-sectional design was applied using the standardized VARK questionnaire for data collection, the analysis of which was performed using the SPSS software.

Results:

Most students preferred multimodal variants of learning; the bimodal variant was chosen more frequently. No significant associations were obtained between VARK scores and the sex or age of the students (p>0.05). Significant differences were reached for kinesthetic scores between preclinical and clinical students (p=0.031). In addition, a significant association was achieved in relation to the preferred unimodal variants among preclinical and clinical students. No significant differences were found regarding academic performance among students with unimodal or multimodal preferences (p>0.05).

Conclusions:

The application of the VARK questionnaire allowed the identification of preferred learning styles for particular ways of presenting information among medical students in The Gambia. Learning styles differed among students, most of whom had a preference for multimodal styles, which included the kinesthetic variant. These findings could be used to improve the quality of teaching.

        · resumen en Español     · texto en Español     · Español ( pdf )