Avaliação dos estilos de aprendizagem em graduandos de medicina

Abstract

In higher education, it is paramount to recognize different learning styles, projecting the possibility of using different teaching strategies and more specific methodologies. The present study aims at describing the learning styles of medical school students. An observational, transversal, exploratory, and nested case-control study was conducted with medical school students from years one to six in a community university in Southern Brazil. The longitudinal stage of the study consisted in the consecutive evaluation of the one group from first semester class in periods of 0-6-12-18 months. To evaluate students, a VARK questionnaire was used (VARK meaning Visual, Aural, Read/write, and Kinesthetic). In order to evaluate students' performance, a progress exam (TPMed) was employed. Students' average grades in the semester were also considered. An evaluation of 319 students verified that the majority presented multiple learning styles (76%). In the transversal stage, the correlation between stimulus modalities of learning styles and Z score for TP med performance shows a correlation of r = 0,205 (p <0,001), which suggests a weak association between multimodal (trimodal or quadrimodal) students and higher student performance, represented by the TP med score. When conducting the association analysis between learning styles (QT Modal) and average grades, it is possible to observe a 0,285 correlation (p<0.001), showing a tendency to superior performance in students with multiple learning styles. In the longitudinal analysis, it was possible to highlight the change in learning styles (QT Modal) from the first to the third semester (p<0.001). It is possible to conclude that, considering the methodology employed and the sample analyzed, most students present multiple learning styles, and gender and age differences are not significant. No important correlation was found between learning style and academic performance. In the longitudinal analysis, the process of change in the learning model reaches a bigger diversity of styles in the third semester of medical school.