LEARNING STYLES ASSOCIATION WITH ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AMONG NURSING STUDENTS

Abstract

Introduction: Nursing education is an evolving sphere and knowing learning styles of the students may play a crucial role as a foundation for designing suitable teaching strategies. Integration of instructional strategies according to the preferred learning styles of students in nursing education may bring excellence in their academic performance. Therefore, the impact of learning styles in association to the academic success of the nursing students need to be researched in order to have better outcomes in teaching and learning process.

Material & Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out to determine the association of learning styles with academic performance among nursing students. Permission was granted from the review boards, concerned departments and participants of the study.  Data was collected through VARK questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20. Chi-square tests were applied for comparison between grades of students with different learning style while ANOVA was used to compare mean marks obtained and Grade Points, where P-value <0.05 was considered as significant.

Results: A total of 177 sampled population with mean age of 23.9 ± 5.515 participated in the study. Around 60 (33.9%) males and 117 (66.1%) female participated in the study. Most 99(54.8%) of them liked students centered teaching approach. The most common learning style was noted as Kinesthetic 56 (31.6%) followed by 38(21.5%) of read and write. There was no significant difference regarding the pattern of learning styles among Generic and Post RN BSN students (p=0.201).

Conclusion: Kinesthetic and visual learning styles were found the most preferred learning styles among nursing students as compared to the auditory or reading styles. Results showed that preferred learning style had a positive impact on the academic performance. Findings of the study further reflected that academic performance has a significant association with the learning styles of the student in nursing education therefore teaching and learning strategies must planned according to the learning styles of the students to excel the overall learning process and academic achievement of the students.