The Importance Of Learning Styles In Nursing

The ongoing changes and challenges in the healthcare delivery system and the proliferation of innovative practices, coupled with the need for nurses to assert their leadership and autonomy, have necessitated the need to promote innovative teaching and learning strategies to enhance students experience while providing consistency of learning. Nursing programs are now more diverse, with age, gender, and ethnicity as well as mature students with degrees in other professions. It is, therefore, more essential for nurse educators to be aware of student’s learning style and to create a curriculum best suited for a quality and positive learning outcome. The objective of this paper is to assess the learning style and preferences of the nursing student in my practicum setting, their culture and unique needs and how it can be applied globally in any nursing program.

Identification of learning style using the VARK learning questionnaire

Every student is unique in their learning style

Sixteen statements evaluate a person’s learning styles in four main categories; visual, aural, reading and kinesthetic, the learner selects multiple answers from choice A, B, C or D (Fleming, 2012). According to the VARK questionnaire, individuals with a preference in visual style tend to learn mostly through visualization, and often prefer and learns best from visual displays (Fleming, 2012). As indicated by Fleming, 2012, auditory learners, on the other hand, learn best from attending or listening to lectures, speeches, and oral sessions, and relies on the instructor to give a verbal explanation instead of reading about it. Another prefer learning style of students is kinesthetic learning style, where individuals prefer to carry out a physical activity, rather than listening to a lecture or merely watching a demonstration (Marek,