Learning Style Differences between Nursing and Teaching Students in Sweden: A Comparative Study

Abstract

The teaching profession has been continually challenged to provide evidence of the effectiveness of teaching and learning methods. Teacher education, as well as nursing education, is currently undergoing reforms in Sweden. At the university where the research was conducted, teaching and nursing programs are two priority educational programs and maybe knowledge of learning styles can improve the quality of these programs. The purpose of this research was to examine the learning style preferences for two student groups, teachers and nurses, to analyze their differences in light of international research on learning styles. The study involved 78 teaching students and 78 nursing students. Twenty subscales of the Productivity Environmental Preference Survey (PEPS) (Dunn, Dunn, & Price, 1984;1991; were used to identify the participants' learning style preferences. The results showed statistically significant differences between the two student groups. In comparison to teaching students, more nursing students were highly motivated, kinesthetic, and preferred authorities. More teaching students were highly persistent. The findings suggest the need for widely diverse teaching approaches and conscious didactic action skills in higher education, as well as implementation of learning strategies for students.

When are nursing students on clinical placements ready to expand their learning repertoire?

“…[26,27] Besides, both teachers and supervising nurses can benefit from understanding students' different learning styles when facilitating the learning process. [26,27] This corresponds with Li, Yu, Liu, Shieh and Yang, [28] who concluded that educators could benefit from knowledge about students' learning styles when devising how to facilitate the learning process in both classroom and clinical courses, so individual needs could be met and thereby the chances of students reaching a high level of academic performances could be enhanced. These studies indicate that it is a good intervention to make agreements on facilitating the learning process by letting the student learn by using the preferred learning style in the first weeks and afterwards challenging them to develop another style in order to maximise their learning potential.…”

“…However, in the course of the interpretation, it was discovered that it would have been relevant also to focus on the learning styles of the preceptors, because it appeared that the student-preceptor relationship and the way the preceptors facilitated expansion of learning style repertoire might be influenced by the preceptor's learning style. [26,32] The study was carried out in two hospitals, and the students were enrolled in two campuses. Future research on a larger scale and including clinical placements in both hospitals and municipalities will be relevant.…”

Matching Teaching Pedagogy with Learning Styles of Students- Insights through Literature Review

“…9. Sweden: In a research conducted on 78 teaching students and 78 nursing students in Sweden [25], Productivity Environmental Preference Survey (PEPS) was administered to identify the participants" learning style preferences. More nursing students showed high level of motivation as compared to teaching students.…”

Vectors of Students’ Practice-Oriented Professional Training in Teacher Education Universities

“…It includes tests, thematic situation-based tasks, and questions for reflection. As the main form of education here is a form of designing professional activities in the context of his/her professional competence and development of a creative personality of the future teacher (Zimnyaya, 2005;Boström, 2013;Thomas, 2012).…”