Resumo

GONZALEZ GARZA, Beatriz; HERNANDEZ CASTANON, Ma. Alejandra  e  CASTREJON REYES, Victorina. Learning styles for the development of competences in students of the Degree in Nursing. RIDE. Rev. Iberoam. Investig. Desarro. Educ [online]. 2018, vol.8, n.16, pp.351-369. ISSN 2007-7467.  https://doi.org/10.23913/ride.v8i16.345.

According to experience-based learning theory, an individual’s cognitive processes influence the individual’s learning style, or the way a person responds to educational tasks. Objective: To determine the learning styles of undergraduate nursing students at a public university. Method: A descriptive cross-sectional study in which 271 first to eighth semester students participated. The Honey-Alonso Learning Styles Questionnaire was used, which consists of 20 questions for each of the four learning styles (active, reflective, theoretical, and pragmatic). Three cut-points were established to analyze the type of each learning style: potential, developing, and lacking. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. The study was authorized by the faculty, and the students’ verbal consent was obtained when the study was performed. Results: The average age of the participants was 22.2 years, and 84.2% were female. The active and theoretical styles were ranked the highest, in terms of percentage. The active style had a developing percentage of 51.7% and a potential percentage of 26.9%; the theoretical style had 56.8% and 22.5%, respectively. The reflective style had the lowest potential percentage (3.0%), followed by the pragmatic style (4.8%). Among the first to fourth semester students, the active style had a medium to high potential percentage of 26.9%, while the theoretical style had a potential percentage of 23.5%. Reflective (2.5%) and pragmatic (1.7%) had very low percentages in this category; however, the latter had the highest developing percentage. The fifth to eighth semester students showed similar percentages for active (27%) and theoretical (21.7%) learning styles; the reflective (3.3%) and pragmatic (7.2%) learning styles were slightly higher. Conclusion. In general, the students showed an inclination for the theoretical and active learning styles, and the reflective and pragmatic styles were less developed. It is thus essential to develop teaching strategies that complement these learning styles as a fundamental part of skill development.

Palavras-chave : Learning styles; students; professional skills; nursing.