Background: Teaching media used in undergraduate medical training can depend on institution, individual teacher and the subject matter being taught. Studies have shown considerable variations in the perceived effectiveness of one method versus another. Furthermore, students may have different responses to specific media based on their own learning style.

Aim & Objectives: The study aimed to reveal and understand the perspectives of medical students on teaching media, providing better chance of meeting diverse learning needs. The objectives were to report students' exposure and preference on currently used teaching media and to associate their preference with their own learning style.

Methods: Two questionnaires were distributed to fourth year medical students with no selection criteria. The first addressed what media they most commonly encountered and which media they found more helpful (power-point or any combination of props/models, whiteboard, video, acetates), the latter being addressed with answer triangulation. The second was the Learning style Questionnaire by Felder and Soloman with four categories: active-reflective, sensing-intuitive, visual-verbal and sequential-global. SPSS 15.0 was used for the statistical analysis. The students' preference among teaching media was tested using chi squared test and its association with the learning style was tested using Spearman rank correlation.

Results: All students (no=56) declared that Power-point was the media they most commonly encountered in their medical training. In regard to their tutorials, 67% of students (p=0.02) found the combination of other than power-point media more helpful (among them the most favourite media was props/models, 63% p=0.12). In regard to their lectures, 59% (p=0.24) found the combination of other than power-point media more helpful. The preference to power-point showed a significant negative correlation to sensing-intuitive learning style (p=0.03, rho=-.3) whereas the preference to whiteboard showed a significant positive correlation to sequential-global learning style (p=0.04, rho=.28).

Discussion: Power-point is the dominant teaching media used in undergraduate medical training. However, most students found the combination of other than power-point media more helpful in their tutorials. They would prefer the use of props/models with whiteboard or video. Interestingly but not surprisingly, students' preference to teaching media was influenced by their learning style, and power-point was more favourite media among the more sensing learners whereas the more global learners found more helpful the use of whiteboard in combination of other media apart from power-point. No association was found between media preference and learning style in the active-reflective or visual-verbal domains. It is a limitation of the study that the number of students recruited fell behind the estimated sample size. This issue will be addressed by completing the recruitment period. Also, the study addressed the students' perception on teaching media but not the actual effectiveness of different teaching media which should have taken into consideration examination marks.

Conclusion: Most medical students found the combination of teaching media other than power-point more helpful especially for their tutorials, suggesting changes in the current practice. Learning style influences students' preference for teaching media and relevant questionnaires can be used and developed further to help understand and meet diverse learning needs.