Learning Styles of Nursing Students in regard to Their Gender and Academic Batches: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Background: Understanding how students learn is crucial for educators to effectively support and address their learning challenges. This knowledge enables teachers to tailor their instructional approaches to meet diverse learning needs. Objectives: The study aimed to compare nursing students' learning styles across different genders and academic batches. Design: A comparative descriptive research design was employed. Setting: The research was conducted at the Faculty of Nursing, Suez Canal University. Participants: A total of 590 nursing students participated in the study. Methods: The Grasha-Riechmann Student Learning Styles Scale was utilized to assess and categorize students' learning styles. Results: The analysis revealed that competitive and independent learning styles demonstrated the highest mean scores. Female nursing students scored significantly higher than their male counterparts in collaborative, competitive, dependent, and participant learning styles. Moreover, statistically significant differences were observed in learning styles across the four nursing student batches, except for the dependent learning style. Conclusion: The dominant learning styles of nursing students are collaborative, competitive, and independent. Besides, there are significant differences regarding gender between nursing students in all styles except the independent, and avoidant, also, there are significant differences among the four batches in all learning styles except the dependent style. Recommendations: Educators should develop targeted teaching strategies to enhance avoidant, dependent, and participant learning styles. Furthermore, individual differences related to gender and academic batches should be carefully considered and addressed in educational approaches.