CHARACTERIZATION OF LEARNING STYLE PREFERENCES OF VETERINARY MEDICINE STUDENTS

• Grant number: 24/22030-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2025
• End date: March 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Veterinary Medicine
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Rodrigues da Cunha
• Grantee: Emanuelle Emmy Leite
• Host Institution: CENTRO UNIVERSITARIO NOSSA SENHORA PATROCINIO/CEUNSP

Abstract

Learning styles refer to the individual ways in which students perceive, process, and memorize information. These preferences are influenced by cognitive, affective, and physiological characteristics, which directly impact how students assimilate content. In addition, the diversity of students' cultural and educational backgrounds requires adaptations in teaching to ensure equity in learning. In the context of Veterinary Medicine, with a demanding and interdisciplinary curriculum, knowledge of students' learning styles is even more relevant, since this can contribute to new teaching and learning strategies, thus reflecting in better academic performance and reducing students' cognitive overload, often associated with demotivation and stress. Therefore, knowing the profile and study preferences of students is essential for their training as Veterinarians and consequently reflecting in better veterinary treatment and promotion of animal health, as well as in the other diverse activities of Veterinarians in the world of work, including in human health. Thus, the objective of this research will be to evaluate the learning style preferences of students from the first to the fourth semester of Veterinary Medicine at a University Center in the state of São Paulo, identifying how these styles influence their academic performance and preparation for professional practice. For this, the EdA (Learning Styles 1.0) application will be used, which includes 44 questions from the questionnaire known as the Index of Learning Styles (ILS) by Felder-Soloman (appendix 1) to evaluate the indices of learning styles characterized as sensory/intuitive, visual/verbal, active/reflective, sequential/global. In this way, the EdA program is an innovative and very interesting tool because it provides the results of the student's profile immediately after the participant answers the questionnaire ((appendix 2 - simulation). Therefore, this study will evaluate the profile of Veterinary Medicine students in the categories of perception (sensory/intuitive: how the individual responds to the teaching environment), input (visual/verbal: how information is received), processing (active/reflective) and understanding (sequential/global: how information is processed). The information acquired about the students' learning style will be compared with their academic performance in some subjects (curricular units) of the basic cycle in order to have subsidies for a better understanding of the magnitude of the impact that the learning style can have on academic performance. The data obtained will be subjected to a non-parametric statistical analysis for data analysis, considering the significance index p<0.05.