Does English literacy and learning style affect the 2^nd MBBS exam performance of medical undergraduates?: a descriptive cross-sectional study

Understanding the possible reasons for some students to fail at different examinations in medical undergraduate career is imperative to improve the teaching-learning strategies.

We aimed to describe the association of learning style and English literacy on 2^nd MBBS examination performance.

A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 175 medical students who sat for the 2nd MBBS examination in 2019, using the Kolb learning style questionnaire. Socio-demographic data, English grade in the Advanced Level examination (AL) and Z-scores were collected through another self-administrated questionnaire. As per the stipulated criteria, participants were categorized into 4 learning styles: activist, reflector, theorist, and pragmatist. Association of learning styles, English literacy, and Z-scores with the 2^nd MBBS examination performances were analyzed using chi-square test and student’s t-test considering p<0.05 as statistically significant.

A total of 145 (83%) students responded. The mean age was 24.91 years (SD=0.96), and the majority were females 54% (n=78). The preferred learning style among participants with unimodal learning style (n=128, 88.28%) was ‘reflector’ (n=96,66.21%). We did not find a significant association between the learning style and examination performance (chi-square test, p=0.31). However, a significant association between AL English results and examination performance was noted (chi-square test, p=0.01). Moreover, significant associations between AL Z- score either with English (Student t-test, p=0.22) or 2nd MBBS results (chi-square test, p=0.53) were not noted.

Reflectors, the learners who learn by analyzing observations, was identified as the most preferred learning style among medical undergraduates. English literacy but not the learning style seems to have a significant positive association with their academic performance. Activities to improve the English literacy of students from the entry level should be encouraged