Abstract

PONCE DE LEON-CASTANEDA, M.E. et al. Profile of learning preferences of students and professors of medicine: Element to consider in teaching. Educ. méd. [online]. 2010, vol.13, n.1, pp.33-39. ISSN 1575-1813.

Introduction. It is important for students and teachers to identify their learning profiles. Subjects and methods. The consent of the author was solicited to translate and apply the VARK questionnaire to 530 students and 27 professors of Public Health course, which is given at first year medical students. Fisher's exact test was used to identify the existence of differences between the learning profiles of the professors and the learning modalities of the students and then both compared with the averages of grades separated by group. By means of inferential analysis the association between gender and group characteristics with the average grades looked for. Results. 31%, of the students displayed a single modality of learning, and 69% declared more than one learning modality; and of these last ones 14% said they development all four modalities. It is interesting to note that 41% are visual/kinesthetic and 64% of the students displayed of one to two modalities. About the teachers 26% used only one teaching modality, 74% used more than one, and 4% used all four modalities. There were no statistical significance differences between women and men neither between, morning and afternoon groups nor with high performance groups. Conclusions. This first approach allowed us to have a general vision of the preferences of learning in the studied population. When the teacher identifies how their students learn and also recognizes his/her own, he/she can enrich their educational practice, and approach it to the necessities of the students and, that way improve the teaching process and better the student's results.

Keywords : Learning strategies; Student; Teacher; VARK.

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