Learning styles of millennial students at a pharmacy school in the philippines

Abstract

Background: The millennial generation already composes the majority of populations across different pharmacy schools in the Philippines. The need to explore millennial students’ learning styles and its governing factors thereby become more valuable in changing and innovating instructional approaches, designs, and strategies used in their learning environment. Aims: This study aimed to generally describe the learning styles of the millennial pharmacy students from a college institution in the Philippines using the Vermunt’s Inventory of Learning Styles (ILS). Specifically, it aimed to determine the appropriate approaches in response to the students’ learning styles, and the relationship between and among the variables of the study. Method: A quasi-experimental research design was employed in this study using online survey as the method of data collection. Descriptive statistical analysis was employed to analyse the data using Microsoft Office Excel 2013 and IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences Statistics. Pearson’s correlation coefficient investigated the relationship between and among the independent and dependent variables, while t-test and one-way ANOVA tested for significant difference among groups. Results: There were 124 out of 168 students who participated in the study making the overall response rate at ~74%. The most prevalent learning style among the millennial pharmacy students enrolled in De La Salle Medical and Health Sciences Institute, College of Pharmacy is application-directed (3.85±0.46), followed by reproduction-directed (3.81±0.45), undirected (3.73±0.49) and lastly meaning-directed (3.52±0.54). The students’ perceived grades were significantly reflected by their learning styles. Conclusion: Results of this study may be used in increased capitalising and development of the learning style profile of millennial pharmacy students to application-directed approaches. Instructional approaches, designs and strategies must cater to how students learn effectively and strategically, and consider all possible governing factors that affect learning styles of students.