Ann Plast Reconstr Surg | Volume 2, Issue 2 | Research Article | Open Access
Ahmad Z1,2*
1Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Salisbury General Hospital, Wiltshire, UK
2Peninsula Postgraduate Health Institute, University of Exeter, Exeter, Devon, UK
A learning style is a student’s consistent way of responding to and using stimuli in the context of learning. Stewart and Felicetti (1992) define learning styles as those ‘educational conditions under which a student is most likely to learn’. Thus, learning styles are not really concerned with ‘what’ learners learn, but rather ‘how’ they prefer to learn. Research has been conducted comparing and contrasting surgical versus medical specialties and within surgery itself too. Within plastic surgery very little research exists regarding learning styles such as how trainees learn, what methods exist to facilitate learning and what are the most successful methods for trainees to learn. Use of a learning inventory can identify an individual’s learning styles and through its analysis an individual can be classified according to the knowledge, skills and attitudes a trainee possesses. As a result, individuals often prefer and perform better in activities which embellish these traits and hence lead to better performance. The first author conducted a survey of a single plastic surgery unit, where various surgeons of varying levels of experience completed learning styles inventories. Interestingly, of the 13 surgeons who replied, 12 had the same overriding learning style. This small and somewhat limited pilot study shows that plastic surgery trainees and consultants perform similarly in the tasks relating to concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation and active experimentation, which overall classifies their overall learning styles in this particular unit as having a hands-on approach i.e. ‘doers’ and activists. If this study was conducted to include a larger sample size, this could lead to some potentially interesting results which could have far-reaching implications for training, selection into the specialty and surgical skills.
Ahmad Z. Learning Styles in Plastic Surgery: A Pilot Study. Ann Plast Reconstr Surg. 2018;2(2):1015.