Undergraduate nursing students' learning styles: a longitudinal study.

This paper reports on the main findings of a longitudinal study of the learning styles of one cohort of undergraduate pre-registration nursing students at an Irish university. The Honey and Mumford (2000a) Learning Styles Questionnaire was administered to a sample of students in their first (n=202) and final year of study (n=166), the final sample number (58) was based on matched pairs. The most common dominant learning style in first year was the dual learning category (35%) while a large proportion of the students (53%) in their final year had no dominant learning style. The preferred learning style of students in their first (69%) and final (57%) year was reflector. Learning styles were significantly different at the two time points and there was a significant relationship between some learning styles and students' age but not with academic achievement. Total scores of all learning styles showed significant improvements across the two time points of the study. An important implication for nurse education practice is the need for nurse educators to be aware of students' learning styles and in an attempt to maximise students' learning potential, utilise a range of teaching and learning methodologies and assessments that develop all learning styles.