Exploring electrophysiology students’ learning styles and attitudes toward online learning

INTRODUCTION: A learning style can be described as an individual difference in perceiving and processing information in one’s mind. The previous research suggested that one may attain greater achievement when teaching is organized according to their learning style. Moreover, upon comparing online and traditional learning environments, learning styles may also need to be considered in distance education. The present study aimed to explore the attitudes of electrophysiology students toward online learning by their learning styles.
METHODS: This cross-sectional study recruited 101 students, 20.79% (n=21) males and 79.21% (n=80) females, enrolled in the electrophysiology program in the 2021-2022 academic year. The data were collected using a demographic information form, the VARK Learning Styles Questionnaire, and the Online Learning Attitude Scale (OLAS).
RESULTS: Almost all participants (93.07%; n=94) attended distance education during the pandemic. The findings revealed that the participants mostly adopted all of the Visual-Auditory-Read/Write-Kinesthetic (39.60%; n=40) learning styles, while kinesthetic learning style was adopted the most (13.86%; n=14) as a unimodal learning style. Besides, while having a high attitude toward online learning, the students scored the highest on the OLAS APPEFF subscale (3.54±1.02). Finally, it was concluded that the students with bimodal and quadrimodal learning styles had significantly higher attitudes toward online learning than those adopting a unimodal learning style (p=0.034 and 0.011, respectively).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Overall, the participating electrophysiology students had high attitudes toward online learning and often adopted a multimodal learning style.