The Relationship between Learning Styles and Academic Achievement among Students in the Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Muslim Indonesia

Background: Medical education requires mastery of material and effective application of knowledge, yet students' academic achievement often does not align with their learning abilities. This study aimed to analyze the relationship between the learning style and academic achievement of the 2023 cohort of the Faculty of Medicine students, Universitas Muslim Indonesia (UMI), addressing a gap in the literature regarding the impact of learning styles in medical education. Methods: An observational study with a cross-sectional approach involving 166 preclinical students from the 2023 cohort. Data were collected via an online questionnaire and analyzed using the Chi-square test. Results: Most students demonstrated satisfactory academic achievement, with only 1.80% falling in the very unsatisfactory category. The most common learning style was visual (41.60%), followed by auditory (31.30%) and kinesthetic (27.10%). However, the analysis showed no statistically significant relationship between learning style and academic achievement (p = 0.260, p > 0.05). Conclusion: These results suggest that while the visual learning style is most common, students with an auditory learning style also demonstrated strong academic performance. This may be attributed to teaching methods that align more with auditory learning. Future research should include a larger sample and consider other factors such as the learning environment and motivation. This study highlights the importance of adapting teaching methods to match students' dominant learning styles, enhancing the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process at the Faculty of Medicine, UMI.