Relationship between Metacognitive Strategies, Learning Styles and Time Management in Virtual Medical Education Students

Different factors affect the quality of virtual education. Identifying them and their relationships with each other can provide a suitable opportunity for educational planning based on the needs of learners and the characteristics of the educational environment. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the status and relationship of three factors of metacognitive state, learning styles and time management among virtual master's students in the field of medical education.

This cross-sectional analytical study was conducted in Iran University of Medical Sciences in 2021-2022. Fifty-four medical education master's students were included in the study by census method. Data collection tools were O’neil and Abedi's metacognitive state questionnaires, WARk's learning style questionnaire and Truman's time management questionnaire. The data were analyzed and using Mann-Whitney, Chi-square, Kruskal-Wallis and Spearman's correlation coefficient through SPSS .

The results showed that the most used learning style in both sexes was listening. The mean of time management score was 41.77±6.74 and the mean of metacognitive strategies was 50.03±7.46. The results of the study showed that there was significant relationship between learning style and metacognitive score (P=0.005, H=14.745),  as well as,between learning style and time management (P=0.001, H=19.433). Also, the relationship between learning style and all metacognitive components was significant (P<0.05). According to Spearman's test, there was no significant relationship between metacognitive state and time management (P>0.05, r=0.109).

According to the results of the current study, the dominant learning style of virtual students was listening, and the mean of metacognitive score was average and time management was relatively favorable. Therefore, it is suggested, policy makers pay attention to these three factors in the revision of curriculum and educational planning for virtual students.