Comparison of Learning Style Preferences among First-Year Medical and Dental Students in Udayana University

Learning style is the way learners perceive, interact, and give responses to their specific learning environment. New university students are being exposed to a newer and more specific learning environment compared to high school. This research aims to explore and compare first-year medical and dental students’ dominant learning style in Faculty of Medicine Udayana University. Descriptive research with a cross-sectional study using Honey and Mumford Learning Style Questionnaire in the Indonesian language was conducted with medical and dental students in their beginning of education. The questionnaire consists of 80 random questions for each type of learning styles (activist, reflector, theorist, and pragmatist) and divided into five preferences (very low, low, moderate, high, and very high). The Mann-Whitney method was used for statistical analysis. There were 283 students consisted of 235 (83%) medical students and 48 (17%) dental students who responded to this research. The median data of activist, reflector, theorist, and pragmatist learning style in medical students respectively were 11 (2–18), 16 (7–20), 14 (6–20), and 14 (8–20). Among dental students, the mean and median data of activist, reflector, theorist, and pragmatist learning style preferences respectively were 11.25 (±0.472), 17 (11–20), 14 (8–18), and 15 (8–18). The Mann-Whitney test showed similarities among subgroup tested (20 subgroup learning preference) in both medical and dental group of students (p > 0.05). The dominant learning style preferences in medical and dental student groups were pragmatist and theorist. The learning style preferences in both medical and dental students were similar.