Learning Styles of Dental Students at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences Using VARK Questionnaire

One of the main factors influencing students’ learning is learning style that tends to be flexible thus facilitating the learning process by adapting to a given teaching method. The aim of this study was to identify the learning styles of dental students at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.

The population of this descriptive, cross-sectional study included all junior and senior dental students at International Branch of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences during 2016-17. Subjects were selected by means of complete enumeration sampling and standard VARK questionnaire (version 7.8) was used to collect data. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics.

Of the 93 students, 72% were female and 28% were male. Their average age was 25.09 years and their mean GPA of their previous semester was 15.5. The results showed that 86% of the students used a single style with auditory style as the dominant style. Kinesthetic and auditory styles were the most frequent styles among the male and female students respectively. Double style technique was the most frequent multiple learning style. Moreover, no significant relationship was found between demographic variables (p≤0.05).

It is recommended to determine students’ learning styles in the freshman year and especially after finishing the basic sciences course. This will help teachers adapt their teaching styles to students’ learning styles which in turn will improve the effectiveness of training courses.