Objective:

to analyze the learning styles of nursing students and discuss their implications in the use of teaching approach in teaching practice.

Methodology:

first, second, third and fourth-year nursing students were recruited through consecutive sampling. The Honey-Alonso Learning Styles Questionnaire and a demographic questionnaire were applied. Descriptive analysis and test of normality in all variables were carried out. Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used for the analysis of learning styles and demographic variables. Correlations among styles were examined using the coefficient of Pearson. Finally, it was discussed the influence of learning styles in the use of teaching approach in teaching practice. The type I error was fixed in < 0.05 % on all tests.

Results:

169 students with average age of 24.5 years old and predominance of female gender (81.7 %) participated. The predominant learning style was reflective (53.8 %). It was identified that age impacts the preference of learning styles (p = 0.03), and that active and pragmatic styles and reflective, theoretical and mixed styles, were positively correlated (p <0.05).

Conclusion:

the reflective learning style was the most widely used; however, there are several preferences on learning styles among nursing students. The teacher has the challenge of using different teaching strategies to facilitate individual and group learning.

        · abstract in Spanish | Portuguese     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )