Learning styles of health services management students at Tehran University of medical sciences

Identifying learning styles among students are very important in order to orient in learning and teaching activities. The aim of this study was to determine the learning styles of students in the ground of health services management in Tehran University of medical sciences in 2010. In this descriptive cross-sectional study, total of health services anagement students’ in Tehran University of medical sciences applied in a census study. The tool which used in this research was VARK learning style questionnaire. Data was analyzed by VARK software that later on designed into Excel and SPSS soft wares. In total, 130 out of 150 students completed returned questionnaire (Response Rate=7%).Only 33.1% of the students preferred a Uni-modal learning style. Among those students; 10.8% referred kinesthetics style, 10% preferred read & writing style, 9.2% auditory, and 3.1% preferred visual style. In contrast, the most of students (66.9%) preferred multi-modal [Bi-modal (18.5%), Trimodal (13.1%), Quad-modal (35.4%)] learning styles. There was no significant association between grade point average, sex and education degree with learning styles. Awareness of existing different learning styles among health services management students’ will help to trainers and educators to develop the effective learning approaches and also tailored to students in learning styles. Based on results, it is suggested to apply active learning strategies such as discussion groups, role playing, and simulation and so on to students in this field.