Assessing Learning Styles of Graduate Entry Nursing Students as a Classroom Research Activity: A quantitative research study

Background: A number of studies across different disciplines have investigated students' learning styles. Differences are known to exist between graduate and baccalaureate nursing students. However, few studies have investigated the learning styles of students in graduate entry nursing programs. Objectives: Study objective was to describe graduate entry nursing students' learning styles. Design/Setting/Participants/Methods: A descriptive design was used for this study. The Index of Learning Styles (ILS) was administered to 202 graduate entry nursing student volunteers at a southwestern university. Descriptive statistics, tests of association, reliability, and validity were performed. Graduate nursing students and faculty participated in data collection, analysis, and dissemination of the results. Results: Predominant learning styles were: sensing - 82.7%, visual - 78.7%, sequential - 65.8%, and active - 59.9%. Inter-item reliabilities for the postulated subscales were: sensing/intuitive (alpha = 0.70), visual/verbal (alpha = 0.694), sequential/global (alpha = 0.599), and active/reflective (alpha = 0.572). Confirmatory factor analysis for results of validity were: chi(2)(896) = 1110.25, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.779, TLI = 0.766, WRMR = 1.14, and RMSEA =0.034. Conclusions: Predominant learning styles described students as being concrete thinkers oriented toward facts (sensing); preferring pictures, diagrams, flow charts, demonstrations (visual); being linear thinkers (sequencing); and enjoying working in groups and trying things out (active),. The predominant learning styles suggest educators teach concepts through simulation, discussion, and application of knowledge. Multiple studies, including this one, provided similar psychometric results. Similar reliability and validity results for the ILS have been noted in previous studies and therefore provide sufficient evidence to use the ILS with graduate entry nursing students. This study provided faculty with numerous opportunities for actively engaging students in data collection, analysis, and dissemination of results. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.