Dental students learning styles and its relationship with students satisfaction of the educational status of Tabriz Dental School in Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: Determining the best learning methods that improve learning and increase student satisfaction, especially in the conditions of nationwide epidemics, is essential. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the learning styles of dental students and to evaluate their level of satisfaction in the conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic. Materials and methods: In this cross-sectional research study, all dental students of Tabriz University who were studying in the clinical stage (semester 7 and above) and who met the conditions for entering the study were examined. The data collection tool was a three-part structured questionnaire (demographic information, learning pattern and disability). To determine the learning pattern, the Kolb questionnaire including 12 sentences with four suggested options (each option represents one of the four learning methods of objective experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation) was used. The level of satisfaction was 0 to 10. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 22 software, Kruskal-Wallis test and one-way analysis of variance. Results: 30 male and 30 female students with an average age of 24.11±2.05 years were examined. The average learning method was objective experience 32.87±5.39, reflective observation 32.72±4.74, abstract conceptualization 33.17±5.81 and active experimentation 37.25±6.86. The most common learning pattern among students was convergent style (43.3 percent) followed by adaptive pattern (31.7 percent). Attractive (6.7 percent) and divergent (5 percent) patterns had the least frequency. The degree of students' satisfaction showed an average value (6.84±2.08) for the way of teaching in the dental school.. There was no correlation between learning style and satisfaction with gender. Conclusion: The most common learning pattern among the dental students of Tabriz University was the convergent style and the least pattern was the divergent style.