Understanding the learning styles of undergraduate physiotherapy students

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorHess, Danelle
dc.contributor.authorFrantz, Jose M.
dc.date.accessioned2014-08-22T09:09:41Z
dc.date.available2014-08-22T09:09:41Z
dc.date.issued2014
dc.description.abstractBackground: Undergraduate students at universities have different learning styles. To perform optimally, both they and their educators should be made aware of their preferred learning styles and problem-solving abilities. Students have different backgrounds, strengths, weaknesses, interests, ambitions, levels of motivation and approaches to studying and educators should therefore aim to become more aware of the diverse approaches to learning. Objective: To identify the various learning styles and problem-solving abilities of physiotherapy students at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Methods: Undergraduate physiotherapy students (N=246) who were registered for the 2012 academic year participated in the study. Three valid and reliable questionnaires, including the Index of Learning Styles (ILS), the Problem-Solving Style Questionnaire (PSSQ) and the Learning Style Questionnaire (LSQ), were used. Responses were analysed statistically to establish the association between learning styles and problem-solving ability. Results: A response rate of 72% was reported (n=177). For first-, second-, third- and fourth-year students the response rates were 65/85 (76%), 53/67 (79%), 31/58 (53%) and 28/36 (78%), respectively. Forty-five (25%) participants were male, 124 (70%) were female and 8 (0.04%) did not indicate their gender. The prominent learning styles were feeling (PSSQ), kinaesthetic (LSQ) and visual-verbal (ILS). Males were prone to using the kinaesthetic learning style and females to a more visual learning style. The feeling group constituted 47% of the sample (39% males and 43% females). Conclusion. The majority of students seem to learn by doing, although facts are important to them. It therefore might be important to first teach physiotherapy students concepts and then assist them to apply these in practice.en_US
dc.identifier.citationHess, D. & Frantz, J.M. (2014). Understanding the learning styles of undergraduate physiotherapy students. African Journal of Health Professions Education(AJHPE), 6(1):45-47en_US
dc.identifier.issn2078-5127
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10566/1199
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.privacy.showsubmitterfalse
dc.rights© 2014 Hess & Frantz; licensee Health and Medical Publishing Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
dc.status.ispeerreviewedtrue
dc.subjectLearning stylesen_US
dc.subjectProblem-solving abilitiesen_US
dc.subjectPhysiotherapy studentsen_US
dc.subjectUniversity of the Western Capeen_US
dc.titleUnderstanding the learning styles of undergraduate physiotherapy studentsen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
HessLearningStyles2014
Size:
96.27 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Published version
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.55 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download

Collections

Research Articles (Physiotherapy)
Prof. Josè Frantz