Learning Styles of Medical Students in Birjand University of Medical Sciences According to VARK Model

Introduction: Medical students face with extreme amount of curriculum materials which can't be simply memorized, so different ways of learning have always been emphasized. The goal of this study was to investigate learning styles and related factors among medical students of Birjand University of Medical Sciences using VARK questionnaire. Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study. In 2009-2010 academic year, 148 medical students from different stages of medical school were selected by stratified random sampling..The learning styles of Data gathering tool was VARK questionnaire in which learning styles were classified into four subclasses of visual, audio, reading, and kinetic (skill). Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: Among 148 people participating in this study 77% were female and most of them (66.2%) were passing the basic sciences stage. The learning style mostly used by these students was auditory (48.6). There was no significant relationship between the preferred learning styles and gender (P= 0.18). Conclusion: Considering the fact that students are educated through lecture and oral methods from elementary to university, it would be expected that students prefer auditory learning style to others. Despite the practical outbreak of medical students in clinical settings, increasing students’ ability in kinetic methods seems to be necessary.