The Relationship between Approaches to Learning and Preferences for Instructional Methods

The study aims to determine medical students’ approaches to learning and to assess whether these are related to the educational preferences of individual learners. Students perceive and process information in a very different way. The use of a specific approach depends on the needs of the environment and the learner’s own objectives.   Some students look for the overall meaning of the material and intend to understand the learning material (deep approach). Other students focus upon the details of the information and emphasis upon memorizing individual details (surface approach). Still other students plan, use strategies to monitor and control their learning and have alertness to assessment demands (achieving apporoach).    A maximum likelihood factor analysis of 135 medical students (82 females, 53males) mean age 19.57 drown from Shahid Beheshti Medical School produced 3 factor solution (surface, achieving, and deep approach) with Eigen Values greater than one. The results indicate that the variables underlying each factor were internally consistenT 0.80. Two experiments factor analysis and correlation report that deep approach is associated with a preference for instruction which encourages and challenges understanding. On the other hand, the surface approach is linked with a preference for instruction, which transmits information. The discussion focuses on interventions that may encourage the use of deep approach to learning.