Learning Styles among students of three different Universities in Dentistry in Brazil: Transversal study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33448/rsd-v11i12.34397Keywords:
Learning; Teaching; Education.Abstract
Learning styles indicate the ways and conditions in which students understand, retain, and memorize knowledge in a productive and responsive manner. One of the most widely used tools to assess learning styles is the VARK (Visual, Aural, Read/write, and Kinesthetic) questionnaire. To identify the learning styles of students enrolled in three different dentistry programs in Brazil by applying the VARK questionnaire. This cross-sectional study involved a sample of 340 undergraduate students enrolled in dentistry programs at the following institutions: Federal University of Minas Gerais (n=172), Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (n=100), and Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná (n=68). An online questionnaire was administered to the students via “Qualtrics CM 2020”, between May 2020 and September 2020. It comprised questions about the student`s demographic, socioeconomic, and academic characteristics. Their learning style was assessed by the VARK questionnaire. The chi-squared test and Z-test were used to analyze the relationship between learning styles, considering p<0.05. The most frequent learning style category was found to be unimodal (80.2%), followed by bimodal (16.8%) and trimodal (9.4%). Most unimodal students were distributed throughout the kinesthetic (27.1%), auditory (23.8%), and writing/reading (20.0%) styles, and no statistically significant differences were found among the studied variables. The students enrolled in the three dentistry programs were predominantly unimodal, a finding that diverges from the existing literature. Additionally, a higher frequency of kinesthetic learners was found in the study sample, as verified in other studies.
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Copyright (c) 2022 Constanza Andrea Hernandez Meza ; Ênio Lacerda Vilaça ; Fernanda Tiboni ; Luiz Fernando Frigeri Dos Santos ; Sergio Aparecido Ignácio ; Juliana Shaia Rocha Orsi; Rodrigo Nunes Rached ; Paulo Macuchen Nogas ; Elen Marise Castro de Oliveira ; Paulo Eduardo Alencar de Souza ; Ângela Fernandes ; Marcelo Levi Dias de Almeida ; Aline Cristina Batista Rodrigues Johann
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