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DOI: 10.1055/s-0043-1776016
Assessment of Learning Style Preferences of Saudi Nursing Students
Funding None.
Abstract
Objective In line with global trends, growing number of educational institutions in Saudi Arabia are developing their curricula based on the feedback and suggestions from their students to help improve the quality of teaching. This study aims to assess the differences in learning style preferences among female nursing students of Saudi Arabia.
Methods This cross-sectional study included 124 female nursing students who were asked to answer the culturally adapted Arabic version of visual, aural/auditory, read/write, and kinesthetic (VARK) survey. Data were analyzed with SPSS, version 23. The Wilks' lambda or multivariate analysis (MANOVA) was used to determine the relationship between the participants' learning preferences, sociodemographic characteristics, and year of study.
Results Nursing students who had visual learning preferences had a significantly different learning style as compared to those who preferred aural and kinesthetic learning (p < 0.001). On the contrary, there was not enough evidence to conclude that the same was true for students who preferred to read/write.
Conclusions Further research is required to explore the relationship between learning style preferences and learning outcomes with the inclusion of a larger sample size and representatives of two genders, males and females. The findings of the current research provide the foundation for adaptive learning by identifying the individual preferences in learning among the nursing students.
Keywords
learning preferences - visual - aural/auditory - read/write - kinesthetic - VARK survey - nursing students - Saudi ArabiaEthics
The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB-2021-NUR-007) of Prince Sultan Military College of Health Sciences (PSMCHS). Informed consent was obtained from the participants before data collection.
Data Availability Statement
The data underlying this article will be shared on reasonable request to the corresponding author.
Publication History
Article published online:
30 October 2023
© 2023. The Libyan Biotechnology Research Center. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
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