Association between Academic Learning Strategies and Annual Examination Results among Medical Students of King Edward Medical University

Abstract

Learning style is the composite of cognitive, affective, and physiological characteristics that serve as relatively stable indicators of how a learner perceives, interacts and responds to the learning environment. Felder – Solomon Index of Learning Style (ILS) includes Sensitive/Intuitive, Visual/Verbal and Sequential/ Global, Active/reflective. The learning strategies are a major indicator of exam performance of students.

Objective:  To find the association between academic

learning strategies and annual examination results among medical students of King Edward Medical University.

Study Design:  Cross – sectional study design.

Study Setting and Duration:  King Edward Medical University and 3 months.

Materials and Methods:  The study was conducted among the 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th year medical students of KEMU Lahore. Informed consent was taken. A total of 300 students, 100 each from 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th year were taken. 132 males (44%) and 168 females (56%) were part of the study. Simple Random sampling (non-pro-bability sampling) was used.

Results:  The overall dominant learning strategies among students of King Edward Medical University were sensing/SNS (64.3%), visual/VIS (80.7%), sequential/SEQ (63.7%) and Active/ACT (50.3%). Chi squared test for individual learning combinations against achiever types showed no significant association between academic learning strategies and annual exam performance (p value > 0.05). Results also showed that females performed better academically than their male counterparts.