SENSORY MODALITIES AND LEARNING STYLES OF STUDENTS IN THE FIELD OF HEALTHCARE

To make an educational program effective, it is important to identify students' preferred learning styles. The aim of this pilot study is to investigate the preferred learning styles based on sensory modalities among students in the field of Healthcare and to determine the influence of certain factors (age, gender, specialty, and year of study) on their preferred style. A total of 78 students from two specialties participated in the study through an anonymous online survey, which included the VARK questionnaire, version 8.01. The study was conducted in December 2024 and January 2025, and the data were processed using SPSS v 22. Among all respondents, 47.4% preferred a unimodal learning style and 52.6% a multimodal one. The most preferred unimodal style was kinesthetic (59.5%), followed by auditory (35.1%), while the dominant bimodal style was AK (auditory and kinesthetic). No statistically significant relationship was found between learning styles and the examined factors. Considering the dominant styles (K and AK) among the students, educators should adapt the content of learning materials in a way that facilitates information acquisition.