Learning styles, academic performance and mental health among medical students in King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Objectives: This study was designed to assess the prevalence of various learning styles among medical students and their correlations with academic performances and mental health issues in these students in KSA.
Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 315 (Male =179, Females =136) students studying in college of medicine, King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia between January and June 2019. VARK (Visual Aural Read/write Kinesthetic) questionnaire was used to explore the learning styles of students. Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21) was used to assess the mental health. The participants’ demographic data, grade point average, and scores of all measures were presented using descriptive statistics. Correlation test were used to explore the relationship between learning styles, academic performance and mental health of students.
Result: The results indicated that approximately half of the students (51.7%) had preferred unimodal learning style and 48.3% students preferred multimodal. Among the unimodal learning styles, the most common learning style was aural (29%), followed by visual (16.8%), read/write (3.5%) and kinesthetic (1.9%), while 28.3% participants preferred bimodal mode of learning. There were significant differences between male and female participants. Male students preferred visual and quardimodal style of learning while female students preferred only aural type of learning. Academic achievement was associated with learning style. However, no relationship was observed between DASS-21 scores and different learning styles.
Conclusion: The most preferred learning styles among medical students were aural and bimodal. Learning styles were significantly related to grade point average and no relation exit between mental health and learning styles.