Use of a unified learning style model to improve student self-directed learning in pharmacy students

Purpose: Identify student learning preferences and use these preferences to enhance student life-long learning skills.

Methods: P1 pharmacy students completed a survey about exposure to learning style models and subsequently participated in a learning styles workshop early in the P2 year.  The workshop included a 30-minute lecture defining learning style preferences and 2 hours to determine their preferences using: student self-reporting, learning preference survey, and faculty assessment.  Students completed a “learning satisfaction survey” before the workshop and at the end of the semester to assess learning satisfaction, gain, motivation, time spent studying, and effort used when studying.  Faculty and student agreement of learning styles were described using kappa values. Mean scores on the pre and post “learning satisfaction survey” were compared using paired t-test.  In addition, the proportion of students answering “always” were compared pre versus post using McNemar’s test. .

Results: Fourteen percent of P1 students were familiar with learning style preferences.  73 students completed the P2 workshop.  Significant agreement (p<0.05) was seen between faculty and student identification of visual, aural, reading, kinesthetic, active versus reflective, individual versus team, and competitive versus collaborative learning preference sub-categories.  Significant agreement (p<0.05) was seen between faculty and survey identification of visual, aural, deductive versus inductive, individual versus team, and introvert versus extrovert.  No significant changes were seen comparing mean scores on the learning satisfaction survey before and after the workshop.  Increases were seen in the number of students answering “always” versus other categories in learning satisfaction (1 versus 5 students, p=0.05) and effort used when studying (0 versus 5 students, p=0.03). 

Conclusion: The majority of students have limited exposure to learning style models.  Student self-assessments and surveys could be used to determine learning styles.  Educating students on their learning style preferences may improve their learning satisfaction and decrease their effort used when studying.