Date of Award
8-2006
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Abstract
This investigation had four purposes: first, to determine what specific learning styles students entering medical school possess, second to investigate whether one or more relationship exists between those students' learning styles and their performance on the various sections of the Medical College Admission Test, third to investigate whether one or more relationship exists between the students' learning styles and their performance on the various modes of assessment used during their first two years of training, and fourth, to investigate whether one or more relationship exists between the students' performance on the modes of assessment incorporated into the Medical College Admission Test and the students' performance on the corresponding modes used during the first two years of medical training. Data were derived from the records of 3 03 first and second year medical students spanning five recent years from a publicly controlled university.
Medical College Admission Test scores as well as several measures of student performance used during the first two years of medical school were correlated and subjected to regression analyses. Four learning style dimensions were assessed using the Index of Learning Styles: Active/Reflective, Sensing/Intuitive, VisualN erbal, and Sequential/Global. Students were moderately more sensing and visual but essentially balanced on the remaining dimensions. The Active/Reflective, VisualN erbal, and Sequential/Global dimensions were each related in small to moderate degrees to the various measures of performance, with reflective learners outperforming active learners, verbal learners excelling in verbally oriented measures, and sequential learners outperforming their global counterparts in two modes of assessment, but with global learners outperforming sequential learners in some verbally oriented tasks. Results generally paralleled hypothesized findings using learning style to predict Medical College Admission Test achievement by test section and academic achievement by mode of assessment. A hypothesized relationship between identical modes of assessment used for the Medical College Admission Test and those used in medical school was not supported.
Findings suggest that while students entering medical school are fairly homogenous in terms of learning style, cultivating reflective and verbal learning skills would likely benefit student learning, at least as measured by assessment performance.
Recommended Citation
Hosford, Charles C., "Learning style, Mode of assessment, and medical college admission test performance of students in the first two years of medical school" (2006). Theses and Dissertations. 7455.
https://commons.und.edu/theses/7455