Description
In medical education the debate about the utility and
application of learning styles has gone on with
considerable acrimony for some decades. Since the 1970’s
there have been two principal areas of interest about
learning styles within medical education: to improve
educational efficiency at undergraduate, post-graduate
and continuing professional education levels, and
secondly, to predict career or specialty choice. Two
theoretical and investigative tracks have become
established. The North American work comes from
traditions of individual differences in cognition, while
the European and Australian investigators have pursued
consistent differences in studying style as indicative
of motivational differences. The first approach has
direct bearing on specialty selection and student
mentoring; the second on course structure and reward
articulation.
In this one-hour Audio Seminar, Dr. Curry will review
the theoretical positions and findings of both streams
as applied to mastery in medical education.
Learning Objectives: Participants will be able
to:
- distinguish learning style, cognitive style and
instructional preference
- describe the contribution of style and preference
to education in general
- list style and preference findings relevant to
medical education
- recognize common failings in style and preference
research
- choose at least one area of their own work that
could be informed by style or preference information
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