Abstract

• This descriptive study identifies nursing students' methods of studying related to the learning stages, based on a sample of 251 nursing students in a Korean university. The main findings of the study are as follows. The major learning styles of nursing students were accomodation (68.6%), divergen (53.6%), and convergence (38.8%) for the first, second, third, and fourth year group. For all students, the majority (71.3%) showed accomodation or the divergence. The learning styles for grade level were significantly different, (x2=110.021, df=9, p=0.001). The stage of concrete experience was the majority for all of the first year group (51.8%), the second year group (57.1%), and the third year group (61.3%). But, active experimentation (41.9%) was the majority for the fourth year group. Also there were significant differences between the stages of learning by age (x22= 64.391, df=9, p=0.001). The most significant result of the study was the establishment of different modes of learning stages by year, thus supporting the experiential learning theory. The greatest change of style from the first year group to the second year group was reflective observation (7.3%-->12.9%). That from the second year group to the third year group was the abstractive conceptualization (14.3%-->21.3%); and that from the third year group to the fourth year group was active experimentation (12.0%-->41.9%). This reflects the same cycle as indicated by the experimental learning theory of Kolb. According to the study, nursing students' learning stages tended to be more unbalanced as year increases. Therefore this calls for a careful review of the current nursing curriculum.
• Keywords: Learning style; Nursing students

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