Influence of learning-style preferences in academic performance in the subject of human anatomy: an institution-based study among preclinical medical students

Purpose: The present study was conducted to find the preferred mode of learning among first-year preclinical students and compare the preferred mode of learning with sex, faculty of students, and academic performance of the students using the VARK questionnaire. Methods: A cross-sectional study was done among 142 first-year Bachelor of Medicine- Bachelor of Surgery and Bachelor of Dental Surgery students from February to May 2018. Demographic data and various academic performance marks were recorded for each individual. VARK (visual, aural, read/write and kinesthetic) questionnaire version 7.8 was administered to calculate the score of each component. Mean VARK scores were calculated and each student classified by their preferred mode of learning. The preferred mode of learning was compared with sex, nationality, faculty of students, and academic performance using chi(2), unpaired t-tests, and the Mann-Whitney U test. P<0.05 was taken as statistically significant for comparison. Results: A majority of the students (53.52%) were multimodal. The most common multimodal mode of preference was bimodal (26.06%), while the most common unimodal preference was kinesthetic (29.06%). Total V score, K score, and VARK score were higher among males, while A and R scores were higher among females. The K score (7.96 +/- 2.35 in males and 6.96 +/- 2.43 in females) differed significantly (P=0.019) between male and female subjects. More subjects with higher scores in the theory exam of anatomy were unimodal learners (53.8%) compared to multimodal learners (46.2%). Conclusion: From this study, it can be concluded that undergraduate students were diverse in their learning styles, but most were multimodal. Though learning styles were found to vary by sex, nationality, and academic performance, differences were not statistically significant.