Learning Style Assessment And Its Relationship With Sensory Modalities; A Study Among Third – Year Medical Students At University Of Ghana.

Abstract

Background: Cognitive ability refers to the overall mental ability including conceptualizing, rationality, organization, critical thinking and learning. Research into various field such as neurocognitive and andragogy have identified different types of learning. Understanding and easing the learning process is the ultimate goal educating. Therefore, attention has been drawn to learning styles. Though there is considerable debate in research, the auditory, visual and tactile learning styles are often identified in students. Individuals differ in their preferred sensory modality for absorbing, retaining and processing of information. Whiles various researches have been conducted on learning style little is known about the role sensitivity plays. Aim: The aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between sensitivity to sensory modalities and cognitive performance. Method: The Barsch questionnaire was administered to 94 pre-clinical students to identify the preferred learning styles. Average performance in Pelli Robsin contrast sensitivity test was accepted as a measure of visual sensitivity, average performance in puretone audiometry, frequency discrimination task and frequency modulation task were accepted as a measure of auditory sensitivity and average performance in two point discrimination task were accepted as measure of tactile sensitivity. The Kruskal Wallis test was used to compare sensitivity scores among the four groups (visual, auditory, tactile and no/equal preference). Results: Majority of the participants were unimodal learners 76.6% and the most preferred unimodal learning modality was visual, 41.5%, followed by auditory, 25%, and tactile, 9.6%.The visual learners had higher sensitivity Pelli Robsin contrast sensitivity test of 88% while auditory learners had a higher sensitivity in the puretone audiometry task, ( 20 ± 5)Hz for the right ear and