Customized Teaching for Better Learning

Abstract

Educationists believe that if teaching is imparted to the students, taking into account the way their mind processes information it will enhance the performance of the students as it will make the teaching sessions more interesting and lessons more educative rather than just informative. The aim of the study was to highlight the importance of recognizing the learning styles of the B. Sc. nursing students of MADHA nursing college and to help the instructors to design effective teaching methods that could address all the students and to identify areas for further research. The VARK (Visual, Auditory, Read/Write, and Kinesthetic) questionnaire consisting of 16 questions along with instructions was administered to the B.Sc. nursing students to determine their preferred learning styles. It was seen that out of a total of 98 students 90 (91.8%) completed the questionnaire out of which 47.8% preferred single mode and 52.2% preferred multiple modes of information presentation. Among the students who preferred single mode, 25.6% were Auditory, 11.1% were Read Write, 7.8% were Kinesthetic, and 3.3% were Visual. Among the students who preferred multiple modes, 37.8% were Bimodal, 12.2% were Trimodal and 2.2% were Quadimodal. Active teaching strategies should be incorporated in the class room instead of the traditional didactic lecture format so that all the students would be benefited and they would understand the subject well and perform better and become good nurses benefitting the society.

Keywords: Visual, Auditory, Read/Write, Kinesthetic, Nursing Education