THEINFLUENCEOFSTUDYSTYLESONACADEMICPERFORMANCE AMONGMMMCSTUDENTS:ACROSSSECTIONALSTUDY

MohdFarhanbinOmar,Vithyalakshmia/pRajaBalan,MohdEdiaminbinSuhaimi,MuhammadRedzwanbinAbdullah,NurfatinbtHasanuddin (MelakaManipalMedicalCollege)

INTRODUCTION Competencybased education is the main objective of medical education (1). The curriculum and assessmentsofstudentsacademicperformancearebuilt on the foundation to produce clinicians who are competent in knowledge, skills and attitude (1,2). At most medical schools, various tools are implemented to assess students knowledge, understanding and clinical skills as a continuous medical education assessment (2,3,4,5). To achieve the standard requirements set by the institution and to qualify as a competent clinician, students are motivatedtolearnandperformwellinallassessments(6). Students potential can be tied to learning preference (7,8). Learning styles are defined by Kolb and Brown as the preference of one learning method over another to perceive and process new information includingstrategiesthatareconsistentlyadoptedtolearn (7,9,10,11) . By identifying the dominant learning style, one can potentiate their capabilities andstrength followedby enhancing the effectiveness of learning experience (7,10). Thiswillguidestudentstoplanortomodifytheirlearning methods parallel to the learning preference (12,13). Difficulties in learning are predominantly due to problemsincognitiveprocessas in learning methods and notduetothesubjectitself(14). Studies showed variable distribution of learning styles among students but there is lack of evidence to suggest impact of learning styles on academic performance among medical students in specific (4,15,16,17,18) . A study done in Malaysia among secondary school students showed a strong association between learning styles and overall academic performance with predominantlyvisualandauditorylearners(19).Inanother study in Trinidad, amongst highest performing undergraduate students, 67% were visual learners and theremainingwerekinaestheticlearners(15). Study habits and attitudes are among the main factorsinfluencingacademicperformance.Studieshave
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shown that students with proper time management, concentrationandpositivelearningattitudesperformed better in academics (20,21,22). Sociodemographic factors especially gender, residence area, stable socioeconomic status and family education background have positive associations with academic performance (23,24,25). The main objective of this study is to identify the influence of learning styles on academic performance among MMMC students. METHODOLOGY Studydesignandstudypopulation As a part of an accomplishment to explore the influence of learning style on academic performance among MelakaManipal Medical College (MMMC) students specifically, and to study the learning preference among MMMC students, as well as other factors influencing academic performance generally, an analytical crosssectional study was conducted from July 2013 to August 2013. Crosssectional study is a class of researchmethodswhichinvolvesobservationofacertain population or representative subset at a specific point in time. The study was implemented among the MBBS students of MMMC. MelakaManipal Medical College (MMMC) is a medical college established in 1997 by Dr.Ramdas Pai in collaboration with Datuk K Pathmanabam. MMMC has welcomed their first batch of MBBS students in 1997 and currently, it has 32 batches. Here in MMMC, the MBBS program is divided into 2 phases,where students will becompleting the phase1in Manipal, India for 2.5 years and phase 2 in Melaka, Malaysia for another 2.5 years (26). These groups were pinpointed and used for this research as they represent variouslevelsofeducationofstudentsinauniversity.

Samplesizecalculation According to a study done in Trinidad, it was found that the prevalence of students with Visual style of learning (V) having CGPA 3.60 and above was 67% (15). Thus, with this prevalence, and margin of error of 6%, a sample of 165 students was found to be the minimum number required in orderto conduct this research. This minimum sample size was calculated based on the following formula; n=Z2p(1p) d2+[Z2p(1p)] N Zisdeterminedbytheacceptablelikelihoodoferror.The valueofZissetto1.96,representinga marginoferrorof 6% (d). N is a total population that we take into consideration which is 550. Then, we confirmed the samplesizecalculationbyusingEpiStatcalc(31). Diagnostic,inclusionandexclusioncriteria In this study, we evaluated and allocated the learning style of the students into 5 groups; Visual (V), Auditory (A), Read/Write (R), Kinesthetic (K) and Multimodal (more than one styles, M) based on the scoring system designed by Neil Fleming, the pioneer of VARK learning styles, on 1987, in New Zealand (28). The students involved in this study were those from fourth and fifth year MBBS students consisted of batch 24, 25 and 26. In addition, the inclusion criteria also comprised of those who have given their consent voluntarily and those who are fulltime students of MMMC. Albeit the consent given voluntarily, there were still some results that have to be excluded in this study, which were those that did not complete all the questions, and those who inappropriately answered the questionnaire by the continuous circling of one single option constantly. Moreover, the students who have not yet seated for the Sessional Examination, which was the guideline used for portraying the academic performance, were also excludedinthisstudy.Weobtainedtheconsentfromthe Ethical Committee of MMMC prior to commencement of thisstudywithassuranceofconfidentialityandprivacy.
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SamplingmethodandDatacollection We designed and distributed a set of questionnaire to these students at the MMMC campus during lecture hours. The questionnaire comprised of basic sociodemographic data, VARK questionnaire (version 7.2) designed by Neil Fleming (29) and also additional series of questions on study skills and habits constituted of time management, attitude and concentration that was invented by Queens University (30) . We applied the universal sampling in selecting the participants, where we selected the students from the above mentioned groups due to easy accessibility, availabilityandeaseoftheirvolunteering. We established this questionnaire specifically to combine various sociodemographic details, to ascertain the learning style of the students, to measure quantitatively the study skills and habits of each student, along with few other factors which were anticipated to reciprocallyassociatetotheoutcomeofthisstudy,which was the students academic performance. The questionnaire has 2 components, Section A; Socio demographic data and Section B; Assessment where the first part was VARK questionnaire and the second part wasasetofquestionsforstudyskillsandhabits.Someof the spectrums covered in the sociodemographic data were concerning the batch of the students, course, roll number, age, gender, ethnicity, religion, relationship status, residence area, current accommodation, current posting according to departments in medical course, scholarship, monthly allowance, household monthly income and parents level of education. The first part of Section B which was VARK questionnaire explored differentindividualstylesoflearning(questionnumber1 16). This part was assessed into Visual (V), Auditory (A), Read/Write (R), Kinesthetic (K) and Multimodal (more thanonestyles,M),basedonVARKquestionnairescoring chart where the highest score will be the dominant learning style of an individual. The VARK questionnaire scoring chart comprising of all the answers for all 16 questionsaccordingtoeachcategory,Visual(V),Auditory (A),Read/Write(R)andKinaesthetic(K). The second part of Section B, a series of questionsonstudyskillsandhabits(questionnumber19 31),wassetupandthestudentswererequiredtoanswer those questions on a Likert scale, ranging from (1) to (5), in which (1) signifies Strongly Disagree (SD), (2) signifies Disagree (D), (3) signifies Neutral (N), (4) signifies Agree

(A) and (5) signifies Strongly Agree (SA). These scores were then summed up in 3 categories which were Time Management (question number 19, 22, 25, 28, 29, 31), Attitude (question number 20, 23, 26) and Concentration (questionnumber21,24,27,30). Dataprocessingandanalysis Fordataprocessing,wegatheredallthedataand manually counted the total score of each questionnaire followed by each component. Later, we entered all of these data into and processed using Microsoft Excel 2010. Further statistical analysis was calculated and obtained from EpiInfo7 version 3.5.1. We calculated descriptive statistics which comprises of measures of central tendency such as mean, median as well as measures of dispersion like standard deviation and quartilevalue. We described the mean and standard deviation for age, monthly allowance and studying hours, while we used median as the cut of point in determining the quality of the study habits that comprised of time management, attitude and concentration. For categorizing the academic performance into upper and lower achievers, based on surgery marks, we used Quartile 3 at 67% as the benchmark. In illustrating the results, we used tables, bar and pie charts. All 5 tables thatwecomposedweretablesfordescriptivestatisticsof basic variables, percentage of studentswith high and low academicachievements,comparisonofdifferentlearning styles amongst high academic achievers and low academicachievers,andalsothetableforcharacteristics via quantitative as well as qualitative analysis amongst good academic performance and bad academic performance. We used bar charts to portray the distribution of learning styles on academic performance, the distribution of students accommodation on academic performance, the distribution of academic performers with different study methods and the achievements in academic performance amongst differentethnicitiesinMMMC,whileweusedpiechartto illustrate the distribution of learning style amongst MMMCstudents. Intermsofinferentialstatistics,weusedTtest, ChisquareandFishersexact.WeusedtheTtesttostudy thelinkbetweentheotherquantitativevariableswith academicperformance.Thequalitativevariableswere thencategorizedandweutilizedtheChiSquaretestas
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wellastheFisherExacttwotailedtesttocomparethem totheacademicresults.Levelofsignificancewassetat 0.05;oddsratiowith95%confidenceintervalwas described. RESULTS We calculated a minimum sample size of 165 subjectsanddistributeda totalof275questionnairesout of which we obtained 182 respondents, resulting in a 66.2%respondrate. TableI:DescriptiveStatisticsofBasicVariables(n=182) Variables Batch 24 25 26 Age(meanSD) Sex Female Male Ethnicity Malay Chinese India Others Religion Muslim Buddhist Christian Hindu Others Relationshipstatus Single Married Inarelationship Residency Urban Rural N(%) 46(25.3) 76(41.8) 60(33.0) 23.471.01(22.46 24.48) 102(56.0) 80(44.0) 74(40.7) 59(32.4) 38(20.9) 11(6.0) 77(43.2) 43(23.6) 22(15.4) 27(14.8) 7(3.8) 125(69.1) 6(3.3) 50(27.6) 149(81.9) 33(18.1)

 117(64.3) 9(4.9) 55(30.2) 1(0.5) CurrentPosting A&E 7(3.8) ENT 10(5.5) Medicine 30(16.5) ONG 7(3.8) Ophthalmology 9(4.9) Orthopaedics 31(17.0) Paediatrics 19(10.4) PCM 6(3.3) Psychiatry 5(2.7) Surgery 22(12.1) CommunityMedicine 36(19.8) FinancialSupport JPA 81(44.5) MARA 29(15.9) Parents 49(26.9) PTPTN 19(10.4) Others 4(2.2) Allowancepermonth(mean 771.62477.50(294.12 SD) 1249.12) Householdincome(mean 5895.603834.96 SD) (2060.649730.56) Parentseducation Father: Primary 8(4.4) Secondary 47(25.8) Preuniversity 3(1.6) Diploma 31(17.0) Degree 63(34.6) Master 24(13.2) PhD 6(3.3) Mother: Primary 16(8.8) Secondary 67(36.8) PreU 5(2.7) Diploma 34(18.7) Degree 45(24.7) Master 11(6.0) PhD 4(2.2)
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Accomodation Hostel Stayingathome Stayingwithfriends Stayingwithrelatives

LearningStyle Visual Audio Read Kinaesthetic Multimodal TimeManagement Good Poor Attitude Good Poor Concentration Good Poor StudyHours(meanSD) StudyMethod Groupstudying Selfstudying

27(14.8) 20(11.0) 37(20.3) 61(33.5) 37(20.3) 71(39.0) 111(61.0) 182(100) 0(0) 63(34.6) 119(65.4) 2.601.34(1.263.94) 56(30.8) 126(69.2)

From Table I, the mean age of participants was 23.47 years. Amongst the students who participated, 56.0% were females as compared to the 44.0% males. 41.8% of them were from Batch 25, 33.0% from Batch 26 and 25.3% from Batch 24. In regards to ethnicity, 40.7% were Malay, 32.4% were Chinese, and 20.9% were Indians while the remaining 6.0% were of other ethnicities. 69.1% of our respondents were single, 27.6% were in a relationship and the balances were married. Besides that, we could also conclude that 81.8% resides in urban area and the remaining 18.1% from rural area. Most of them are currently staying in hostel with 64.3% and other 35.7% are staying off campus. Of all the participants 37.3% were nonscholarship while the remaining 62.6% were under scholarship. The mean monthly allowance for the students was RM771.62. With respect to parent's education level, 31.8% of fathers and 48.3% of mothers were of the lower education level (primary, secondary and preuniversity level). From our survey, 33.5% of the students are kinaesthetic learners followed by 20.3% of reading and multimodal learner each and visual learner with 14.8% and the least is audio

learnerwith11.0%. TableII:PercentageofStudentswithHighandLow AcademicAchievements(n=182) AcademicPerformance (67thpercentile) High Low The table above shows that 32.2% of students scored under high academic performance. 67.8% of students scoredinlowacademicperformance. TableIII:CharacteristicsviaQuantitativeAnalysis amongstGoodAcademicPerformanceandBad AcademicPerformance(n=182) Independ ent variables Age (years) Allowance (RM) Studying hours Househol dincome High academic performance mean(SD) 23.61(1.00) 757.63(507.26 ) 2.72(1.06) Lowacademic T performance tes t mean(SD) 23.41(1.01) 778.33(464.55 ) 2.55(1.46) 1.2 7 0.2 7 0.8 1 1.3 0 P valu e 0.20 5 0.78 5 0.42 2 0.19 5 Numberofstudents (%) 32.2 67.8

TableIV:ComparisonofCharacteristicsviaQualitative AnalysisamongstHighAcademicPerformanceandLow AcademicPerformance(n=182)

5362.71(2713. 75)

6151.22(4256. 16)

*Significancelevelsetat0.05

This table show that age, allowance, studying hours and householdincomearenotsignificant(Pvalue>0.05).

Independentvariables

Highacademic performance(n=59) (%)

Lowacademic performance (n=123) (%)

OR(95%CI)

Chisquare

Pvalue

Gender Male Female Ethinicity Malay Chinese Indian Others Religion Muslim Buddhist Hindu Christian Others Accomodation Hostel Stayingwithfriends Stayingwithhome ParentsEducationlevel Motherseducationlevel (High) FathersEducationLevel (High) StudyMethod Group Self TimeManagement Good Poor Concentration Level Good Poor

39.0 61.0 23.7 52.5 18.6 5.1 23.9 37.3 11.9 22.0 5.1 78.0 16.9 5.1 35.6 39.0 18.6 81.4 35.6 64.4 32.2 67.8

46.3 53.7 48.8 22.8 22.0 6.5 51.2 17.1 16.3 12.2 3.3 57.7 36.6 4.9 59.3 28.4 36.6 63.4 40.7 59.3 35.8 64.2

0.74(0.371.46) 0.33(0.150.69) 3.76(1.847.70) 0.81(0.351.89) 0.77(0.163.36) 0.30(0.140.63) 2.89(1.356.22) 0.69(0.251.88) 2.03(0.834.97) 1.59(0.278.80) 2.59(1.215.63) 0.35(0.150.81) 1.04(0.204.94) 0.38(0.19 0.75) 0.62(0.311.26) 0.40(0.170.89)

0.88 10.37 1.14 0.26 12.35 9.03 0.61 2.97 7.12 7.29 9.01 2.04 6.03

0.349

0.001*** 0.001*** 0.607 # 1.000

0.0004***

0.0027*** 0.4349 0.0851 # 0.6834

0.0076*** 0.0069*** # 1.0000 0.0027*** 0.1536 0.0140***

0.81(0.41.61) 0.85(0.421.73)

0.43 0.22

0.5127 0.6357

As for the e table V, we e can conclud de that, Chin nese ethnic city and the Buddhist ar re significant t in obtainin ng a high academic a performance than t the other ethnicitie es (P value < 0.05). Bes sides that, students s who are stayin ng in the ho ostel also ar re 2.59 time es more likel ly to attain high h acade emic perform mance compared to the off cam mpus students (P value < 0.05). Stu udents who are a staying with w dsarelesslik kelytoperfor rmwellinac cademic(Pva alue friend < 0.05 5).Students whose moth her with low w education level have showed s to be b significant t in obtaining g high acade emic perfor rmance (P value < 0.05). Students who w prefer self studyi ing than gro oup studying g have showed significan nt in obtain ninghighaca ademicperfo ormances(Pvalue<0.05 5). actorssuchas a gender, However,theotherfa batch,scholars,re elationshipst tatus,andst tudyhabits ualityoftime emanagement;attitudeand a comprisingthequ osignificanc entrationhav veshowedno ceinrelationto conce acade emicperform mance(Pvalu ue>0.05).

Figure2:Distribution D ofLearningStylesonAc cademic erformance Pe Based on Figure 2, kin naesthetic le earners have e showed emically low w performer in relative to other being acade learning styles. Amongs st the high academic a pe erformers, audio being g the least t learning style s adopt ted while kinaesthetic and reading shared the same frequency f M stude ents. amongtheMMMC
80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

H Achievers High L Achievers Low s

Accomo odation
e 1 shows, majority of o MMMC students were w Figure kinaes sthetic learn ners with pe ercentage 34 4%, followed d by readin ng, multimo odal, visual and audio being the least with11%. 1 Figure3:Distribution D o ofStudentsAccommoda ationon Academ micPerforma ance Asforthefig gure3,majo orityofhighacademic a pe erformers, stayinginth hecampusco omparedtothose t whoarestaying offcampus and with t the significa ant P value e < 0.05. Students wh ho are staying with frie ends have sh howed to havelowaca ademicperfo ormance(Pvalue v <0.05) ).

DISCUSSION N Ever ry individual l is growing g as the tim me passes. Events occu urring at eac ch spectrum of life have e its own impact in nurturing a an individual either physically, p ally. Learnin ng style as s defined emotionally or spiritua K and Brown is the e preference e of one earlier by Kolb learning me ethod over a another to perceive p and d process newinforma ationincludingstrategies sthatareconsistently (7,9,10,1 11) adopted to learn and it is dynamically changing since it may be influence ed by the ex xternal factors such as a learning g environme ent or the competition in studies and ased on our r survey am mong the life events per se. Ba MMMC students, we h have found that learnin ng styles, studying me ethod, parents education, accomm modation, ethnicity, and a religion n have sig gnificant im mpact on academicpe erformance( (Pvalue<0.0 05).Incontr rast,other determinant ts namely ge ender, batch h, relationsh hip status, financial su upport, and study hab bits have shown no significant association a with acade emic perform mance (P v value>0.05). m our surve ey, we have found that students From withvisualle earningstyle ehavebetterperformancesinthe academic. A similar outc come is obta ained from a study in T Trinidadwhi ichhasshow wnthatvisua allearnersha avebetter academic performance p with preva alence rate of sixty seven per ce ents in achie eving CGPA more m than 3.6(15). This 32,33,34) is also supported by oth her studies(3 . This is due to the fact that t t visual learn ners are mor re likely to appreciate a t the learning g experience in the class sroom where e most of t the theory classes c take place as most of the fac culties use slides and pictorial p bas sed instrume ent as their r teaching t tools. Different hues, fonts and diagrams make m the lectures more attractive e and enjoya able for them m. Hence, t ll benefit fr rom this method m of the visual learners wil t dacquiremo oreknowledgeandunde erstanding teachingand ascompared dtoothers. Inth hiscrosssect tionalstudy,wealsodem monstrate significant positive p asso ociation bet tween stayin ng in the campus with h better acad demic performance as it t provides manyfacilitiessuchasth helibraryan ndcafeteriathat t serve basic needs of the stude ents and eas sy access to meet the ween the lib brary and lecturers. The short distance betw hostel and also excelle ent safety measures m suc ch as the o securitype ersonnelaro oundthecam mpusatall availabilityof t times encou urage the stu udents to ac ccess the library even at night to search for coursebase ed materials (35) and eir knowledg ge as in relative to the of ffcampus improve the
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Fig gure4:DistributionofAc cademicPerf formerswith h D Different Stud dyMethods From figure 4, st tudents who o prefers sel lfstudying have h ed to be hi igh achiever r in academ mic performa ance showe compared to tho ose who pre efers study group as their t studymethod(Pvalue v <0.05).

60 50 40 30 20 10 0

H Achievers High s L Achievers Low s

Ethnicity
gure5:Achie evementsin nAcademicPerformance P e Fig amongstDifferentEt thnicitiesinMMMC M From Figure 5, Chinese C eth hnicity show wed the high hest numb ber of studen nts among h high academ mic performa ance group p in comparison with o other ethnici ities (P valu ue < 0.05).

students who may face problems such as transport and safety. In comparison, the offcampus students have more distractions such as the television, having to settle utility bills and no curfew; whereas, staying in campus allowstudentstostudyattheirownpace,timeandplace (36) conveniently. From our research, we discovered that, the mothers level of education is significantly associated with the childs academic performance. In other words, if the mothers level of education is low then the childs academic performance would be higher. In our opinion, such coincidence could be due to circumstances where theloweducatedmotherisahousewifeorselfemployed. Thus, this category of parent spends more time with the child and is more likely to be actively involved in the childs affairs (38,39), especially in education, such as attending parentsteachers meetings in school, giving parental guidance and support in completing the assignments given, and enhancing the childs thinking skills by the mother herself. Hence, this promotes the childs interest in his/her studies. Good motherchilds communication may help in nurturing positive attitude in a child. As a child grows up, he/she may have good motivational skills and high selfesteem. Some students also portray low educated mothers who work hard to support the family as an inspiration to work even harder in their academic performances. This phenomena is one of the contributing factors in better academic performancesamongststudents. In our next variable, we compared the marks scored between students who selfstudy and those who do it in a group. Based on our study, we were able to demonstrate the positive association between students who selfstudy and the marks they achieved in an examination are much higher than the once scored by students who study in groups. The different in the scores might be due to the flexibility of the individual students in determining the time, pace and arranging the study scheduleastheydonothavetobeconcernedabouttheir group members (40). Besides, each student is weak in a certain topic and/or subject, and it is easier to overcome this weakness with the selfadjusted study schedule as each individual is uniquely different from one and the other (41). Group studies require high discipline and cooperation from all the members in order to ensure smooth alearningprocess. However, this can be difficult to achieve. Hence, most students with good academic
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performances choose to study on their own. Selfstudy is believed to help maintain a students selfesteem as there is no fear of criticism, thus improving the creativity in delivering the students ideas and intelligence. Likely, selfstudy also encourages students to be more independent as one has to work hard in finding the learning materials and solving problems on their own. Independence inlearningencourages studentsto put the best effort in their studies thus resulting in good academic performances (42). As time passes, they also become more selfconfident, able to address problems independently and through their own firsthand experience,areknowledgeableandwiser. Studies done in America and Pune proposed that students with good time management quality are more efficient and effective in their learning process thus positively influenced their academic performance (21, 22). In contrast to the studies done in America and Pune, we found out that the outcome of our study shows otherwise. We discovered that, surprisingly, good time management quality is negatively associated with good academic performance. This is due to the fact that medical students are attached to tight schedule designed by the respective faculties for both theoretical and clinical classes. Furthermore, students are obligated to follow strict regulations set by the college in order to completethecoursesuccessfully.Duetothesereasons,it is difficult for the students to be faithful to their daily scheduleincludingtheirstudies;andiftheyareabletodo so, most of them may face difficulties to follow it religiously. Therefore, most of the students will study at any time convenient to them and make full use of the holidays and during weekends and during their study leavetodotheirrevision. Previous studies claimed that concentration quality in the classroom positively affect the students academic performances (43, 44). However, our results contradict this fact as good concentration quality is less likely to give good academic performance. From our perspective, the different findings might be due to the reasons that students are not interested in classroom teachingwhereallthetheorylessonstakeplace.Thelong sessions spent for clinical classes in the hospital which require students to stand and the nonconducive environment in the wards also influence the students ability to concentrate. In spite of this, students are able to pass their examination due to last minute studying

merelyto get throughitbutnegatively this does nothelp themtoacquireknowledge. As for limitations, there are some really important methodological limitations that may have affected this study. First, our sample size was limited to only 182 students from only three batches from Melaka Manipal Medical College undertaking the MBBS course which means that this cannot be generalized beyond the sample. With a bigger sample size, the results may have been more conclusive. Besides that, this study enumerates only MBBS students and not BDS or FIS who may have different learning styles and quality of study habitsthataffectacademicperformances.Moreover,our study was based between the age groups of 22 to 26 yearolds which limit the ranges of different learning styles with the academic performances that can be appreciatedinthedifferentagegroups. Other than this, our results were also based on the academic performances of our students during their Semester Six Surgery Sessional Examination. Sixtyseven per cent was chosen as the high and low set point. This does not necessarily reflect their academic performances as some subjects may be relatively easier to pass than others. It can also be seen due to their preference in certain subjects, they perform better in these subjects as compared to others. This examination is also not an eligibilityexaminationforthe studentstomove on tothe next semester; therefore, the students most likely have takentheparticularexaminationforgranted.Lastbutnot least, as our study learning styles are limited to those of the VARK learning style which only has four domains. So, there is no consideration of the other various types of stylesthesestudentsareexposedto. CONCLUSION Inthisstudy,wenoticedthatvisuallearnershave scored best in their academic performances. This fact should encourage educators to prepare the appropriate learning tools by combining pictures and diagrams with different hues in the classroom. However, other students may have different learning styles such as kinaesthetic andreading.Hence,itwouldbebestfortheeducatorsto incorporate different methods and tools in teaching like simple demonstrations to illustrate the theories, interactive sessions to encourage students to ensure
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active participations in the classroom, and by giving simple examples using day to day activities in order to provide effective and efficient teachinglearning experience. As for students, identifying and understanding learning styles is important as it sets a groundbasisforeachindividualtoplanormodifyhis/her learning strategy in order to sail smoothly in this competencybased education and improve their academic performances. This also should encourage them to stretch their capabilities in searching knowledge by making use of their learning preferences. Thus, it is hope that through this study, students are able to have a more holistic approach in their studies making them great,competentdoctors. REFERENCES
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