Investigating the Learning Styles in Clinical Training Among Students of Qom University of Medical Sciences, Iran

Learning styles can show changes in how a learner receives and interacts with the environment. Since teaching and improving the current situation for students to learn in clinic settings is one of the tasks of medical education centers, the present study aims to determine the learning styles in clinical education among students of Qom University of Medical Sciences (QUMS).

This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in 2020 on 308 students of QUMS from faculties of Medicine, Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedical Sciences who were selected by a stratified random sampling method in two groups of apprenticeship and internship. The data collection tool was the Kolb Learning Styles Inventory. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and chi-square test.

The mean age of students was 23.7±4.3 years; 54.9% were female and 45.1% were male; 64% were undergraduate students and 36% were doctoral students. It was found that 48.1% of students had an assimilating learning style, 24.7% had a diverging learning style, 17.5% had a converging learning style and 9.7% had an accommodating learning style. There was a significant difference between learning styles in terms of the field of study (P=0.03), but not in terms of gender, educational level, marital status and academic year (first-year and final-year students).

Most of students in QUMS have assimilating and diverging learning styles; therefore, providing learning environments appropriate to these styles is important for their better learning and gaining the necessary capabilities in future educational and professional environments.