Influence of Personality Traits and Learning Styles on Undergraduate Medical Students’ Academic Achievement

Purpose: This study aimed to explore the associations between learning styles and high academic achievement and to ascertain whether the factors associated with high academic achievement differed between preclinical and clinical students. Methods: A survey was conducted among undergraduate medical students in Chiang Mai University, Thailand. The Index of Learning Styles questionnaire was used to assess each student’s learning style across four domains. High academic achievement was defined as a grade point average of at least 3.0. Results: Of the 1,248 eligible medical students, 1,014 (81.3%) participated. Learning styles differed between the preclinical and clinical students in the active/reflective domain. A sequential learning style was associated with high academic achievement in both preclinical and clinical students. A reflective learning style was only associated with high academic achievement among preclinical students. Conclusion: The association between learning styles and academic achievement may have differed between preclinical and clinical students due to different learning content and teaching methods. Students should be encouraged to be flexible in their own learning styles in order to engage successfully with various and changing teaching methods across the curriculum. Instructors should be also encouraged to provide a variety of teaching materials and resources to suit different learning styles.

Download Full-text

The relationships between resilience and student personal factors in an undergraduate medical program

BMC Medical Education ◽

10.1186/s12909-021-02547-5 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Ardi Findyartini ◽

Nadia Greviana ◽

Azis Muhammad Putera ◽

Reynardi Larope Sutanto ◽

Vernonia Yora Saki ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Academic Achievement ◽

Medical Students ◽

Personality Traits ◽

Big Five ◽

Coping Mechanisms ◽

Big Five Personality ◽

Personal Factors ◽

Undergraduate Medical Students ◽

Maladaptive Coping ◽

Brief Cope

Abstract Background Resilience is an essential aspect of wellbeing that plays a major role in undergraduate medical education. Various personal and social factors are known to affect resilience. Empirical evidence remains limited regarding resilience and the personal factors that affect it among undergraduate medical students in an Asian setting. Therefore, this study aims to identify undergraduate medical students’ level of resilience and its relationships to personal factors in Indonesia. Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted among undergraduate medical students in years 1–6. Respondents were asked to complete three validated questionnaires: the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) to measure resilience, the Brief-COPE to assess coping mechanisms, and the Big Five Personality Test to measure five personality dimensions. Descriptive and Pearson’s correlation analyses were completed to explore relationships between each variable. Regression analysis was completed to analyze the extent to which coping mechanisms, personality, and academic achievement explained the variation in resilience scores. Results A total of 1040 respondents completed the questionnaires (a 75.42% response rate). Students in both preclinical and clinical stages had quite good levels of resilience and higher scores on adaptive coping mechanisms than on maladaptive coping mechanisms. Adaptive and maladaptive coping mechanisms, Big Five Personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness), and students’ academic achievement explained 46.9% of students’ resilience scores. Conclusions Although the resilience scores in this study were comparable to resilience scores among undergraduate medical students in other settings, we found that coping mechanisms, personality traits, and academic performance may predict resilience among medical students.

Download Full-text

Learning Styles of Undergraduate Medical Students: Using the Kolb Learning Style Inventory

MedEdPublish ◽

10.15694/mep.2015.004.0015 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Myo Kyi Tha ◽

Nilar Khin

Keyword(s):

Medical Students ◽

Learning Styles ◽

Learning Style ◽

Undergraduate Medical Students ◽

Learning Style Inventory

Download Full-text

The influence of learning styles and personality profiles on undergraduate medical students’ clinical performance

Medical Teacher ◽

10.3109/0142159x.2013.772972 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 35 (7) ◽

pp. 608-609 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Krishnamurthy S. Murthy ◽

Paul A. O’Neill ◽

Ged J. Byrne

Keyword(s):

Medical Students ◽

Learning Styles ◽

Clinical Performance ◽

Personality Profiles ◽

Undergraduate Medical Students

Download Full-text

Personality and learning styles in relation to attitudes towards interprofessional education: a cross-sectional study on undergraduate medical students during their clinical courses

BMC Medical Education ◽

10.1186/s12909-020-02327-7 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Caroline Olsson ◽

Hanna Lachmann ◽

Susanne Kalén ◽

Sari Ponzer ◽

Cecilia Mellstrand Navarro

Keyword(s):

Medical Students ◽

Learning Styles ◽

Learning Style ◽

Big Five ◽

Interprofessional Education ◽

Cross Sectional Study ◽

Clear Correlation ◽

Undergraduate Medical Students ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Big Five Inventory

Abstract Background Interprofessional Education (IPE) is now included in curricula in universities worldwide. It is known that there are differences in attitudes towards IPE among students, but less is known regarding how students’ personalities and learnings styles correspond with those attitudes. The aim of this study was to investigate whether personality traits and learning styles have any impact on medical students’ attitudes towards IPE. Methods Seventy nine medical students in their 9th term (63% females, mean age 29 years) were questioned regarding their attitudes towards IPE according to the Interdisciplinary Education Perception Scale questionnaire, the Kolb’s learning style and Big Five Inventory questionnaires. For all three instruments we used the Swedish translated versions. Results When investigated with a logistic regression, adjusting for age and gender, there were no significant associations between Big Five inventory, Kolb’s learning style and IEPS, except for the Reflective-Pragmatic learning style that was moderately associated with a higher IEPS score. Conclusion There was no clear correlation between personality, learning style and attitude towards IPE as measured by the IEPS among medical students in our study population. Further investigations would benefit from a combination of qualitative and quantitative design.

Download Full-text

Learning Style Preferences Among Undergraduate Medical Students: An Experience from Different Medical Colleges of Bangladesh

Bangladesh Journal of Medical Education ◽

10.3329/bjme.v10i2.44640 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 26-30

Author(s):

Md Rezaul Karim ◽

AKM Asaduzzaman ◽

Md Humayun Kabir Talukder ◽

Kazi Khairul Alam ◽

Farhana Haque ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Medical Students ◽

Learning Styles ◽

Learning Style ◽

Sampling Technique ◽

Cross Sectional Study ◽

Learning Preferences ◽

Multimodal Learning ◽

Undergraduate Medical Students ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Medical Colleges

This descriptive type of cross sectional study was conducted to determine the learning styles of undergraduate medical students. The study period was from July 2017 to June 2018. The study was carried out among the students of 2nd, 3rd and 4th phases of MBBS course of 3 government and 4 non-government medical colleges of Bangladesh. Out of 7 medical colleges, 4 were within Dhaka and 3 were from outside Dhaka. The sample size was 1004 students. Medical colleges were selected purposively and convenience sampling technique was adopted for data collection. Bangla translated version Fleming's VARK (visual, auditory, read/write and kinesthetic) questionnaire was used to identify the learning styles of students. The study revealed that out of 1004 medical students, 64.2% preferred multimodal learning styles and rest 35.8% preferred unimodal learning styles. Among unimodal learning preferences, auditory (A) and kinesthetic (K) were the most preferred sensory modalities of learning. Among multimodal learning styles preferences, the combination of auditory & kinesthetic (AK) and auditory, read/write & kinesthetic (ARK) were predominant. There were only significant differences of the mean scores of visual (V) learning style among the male and female students. Majority of students preferred multimodal learning styles. Students are able to learn effectively as long as the teacher provides a blend of visual, auditory, read/writing and kinesthetic activates. The study recommended that teachers should be aware of the medical students' learning styles and aligning teaching-learning methods with learning styles will improve their learning and academic performance. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Education Vol.10(2) 2019: 26-30

Download Full-text