Learning style preferences of undergraduate pharmacy students

ObjectivesIt has been identified that health science students and in particular undergraduate pharmacy students have distinctive learning needs. When university educators are aware of the unique learning styles of undergraduate pharmacy students, they will have the capacity to adjust their teaching approaches to best fit with their students' learning preferences. The purpose of this study was to investigate the learning style preferences of a group of undergraduate pharmacy students enrolled at one Australian university.MethodsThe Kolb Learning Style Inventory, the Index of Learning Styles and the Success Types Learning Style Type Indicator were distributed to 900 students enrolled in an undergraduate pharmacy degree at one metropolitan Australian university.ResultsA total of 240 questionnaires were returned, providing a response rate of 26.7%. The results indicated the Assimilator, Active-Reflective and Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging (INFJ)/Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging (ENFJ) learning styles to be most frequently preferred by pharmacy students.ConclusionsIt is recommended that educators take into consideration the learning style preferences of undergraduate pharmacy students when developing curricula and evaluating teaching approaches, especially when planning, implementing and evaluating education initiatives in order to create an effective, contemporary learning environment for their students.