Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 May 2014
The main objectives were to assess medical students’ opinions about e-learning in psychiatry undergraduate medical education, and to investigate a possible relationship between learning styles and preferences for learning modalities.
During the academic year 2009/2010, all 231 senior Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) medical students in their penultimate year of study were invited to answer a questionnaire that was posted online on Moodle, the RCSI virtual learning environment.
In all, 186 students responded to the questionnaire, a response rate of 80%. Significantly more students stated a preference for live psychiatry tutorials over e-learning lectures. Students considered flexible learning, having the option of viewing material again and the ability to learn at one’s own pace with e-learning lectures, to be more valuable than having faster and easier information retrieval.
Students prefer traditional in-class studying, even when they are offered a rich e-learning environment. Understanding students’ learning styles has been identified as an important element for e-learning development, delivery and instruction, which can lead to improved student performance.