Assessment of Learning Styles and Reaction Times Among Health Care Students: A Cross-Sectional Study

Introduction Reaction time is a simple objective indicator of central nervous system information-processing efficiency and reflects attention, sensory, and motor responses. The variation in reaction time among learning style preferences among health care students remains inadequately explored. Objective The objective of this study is to determine the distribution of VARK learning-style preferences among health care students and to evaluate the differences in visual and auditory reaction time across the various learning-style groups. Methods This single-center analytical cross-sectional study enrolled 120 health care students (B. Pharm) through convenience sampling at Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute. Learning styles were assessed using the VARK questionnaire, and visual and auditory reaction times were recorded. Statistical analysis was performed to evaluate the association between learning styles and reaction time. Results Among 120 health care students, the mean ± SD age was 22.52 ± 5.63 years, with females constituting 63/120 (52.5%) participants and males constituting 57/120 (47.5%) participants. Multimodal learning preference was most common among 62/120 (51.7%) students, followed by aural preference in 35/120 (29.2%) students and kinesthetic preference in 14/120 (11.7%) students, while visual preference was least frequent, in 9/120 (7.5%) students. Overall mean ± SD auditory reaction time (ART) was 151.65 (7.55) ms, and visual reaction time (VRT) was 199.85 (10.08) ms. ART differed significantly by learning style (p<0.001), with fastest responses in aural learners (146.11±4.62 ms) and slowest in kinesthetic learners (166.07±5.92 ms). VRT also varied significantly (p<0.001), being fastest in visual learners (184.22±2.59 ms) and slowest in kinesthetic learners (218.93±8.23 ms). ART and VRT showed a weak but significant positive correlation (r=0.299; p<0.001; R²=0.089). Conclusion Learning-style preferences were associated with significant differences in auditory and visual reaction times, with aural and visual learners showing faster modality-specific responses and kinesthetic learners demonstrating slower overall reaction times.