Investigation of Generic and Subject-Specific Learning Preferences of First-year Medical Students

Objective: In this study, the purposes are to investigate generic and subject-specific learning preferences of first-year medical students, and to examine whether there exists a relationship between generic and subject- specific learning preferences (math and science subjects). Method:In the study, 120 first-year medical students (Male=48, Female=57, Missing data for gender variable=15) were surveyed by using two instruments (VARK Questionnaire, Question Form on Learning Ways in Science and Math). The analyses were done for two different levels of learning preferences; generic and subject-specific. For the analyses, frequencies and percentages were calculated for descriptive analysis while Spearman rho value was calculated for the relationship analysis. Results:The findings showed that %50 of the participants were unimodal in their general learning preference. When looked at the subject-specific learning preferences, it was seen that % 31 of the participants preferred unimodal learning preferences for learning science-related subjects. For mathematics subjects, 45% of the participants preferred unimodal learning preferences. The relationship between generic and subject-specific learning preferences was not found significant while the relationship between math and science-related learning preferences was significant. Conclusion: The findings point out that majority of the medical students preferred unimodal learning preferences among four learning modes (unimodal, bimodal, trimodal, quadmodal). In addition, subject-specific and generic learning preferences of the participants differ from each other when learning preferences are considered by focusing learning task. Moreover, there is no direct association between generic and subject-specific learning preferences while learning preferences regarding science and math subjects are correlated with each other.