Pharmacy students' learning styles before and after a problem-based learning experience.

Objectives: To determine learning-style scores of second-year pharmacy students before and after a problem-based learning (PBL) teaching experience and to evaluate the relationships between scores and demographic variables.

Methods: The Grasha-Reichmann Student Learning Style Scale (GRSLSS) was given to pharmacotherapy laboratory students before and after a semester-long problem-based learning class.

Results: Only one of the GRSLSS score variables was reported as "high" ("collaborative") and none were reported as "low." Students' "avoidant" mean score increased and "participant" mean score decreased after completing the PBL experience (p < or = 0.05).

Conclusion: While PBL appears to be a teaching style that is conducive to the learning preferences of this cohort of pharmacy students, significant changes in learning styles were noted after completing the PBL experience. These changes may reflect difficulties that occurred in adapting from a didactic teaching style to PBL, and specifically, difficulties in adjusting to participating in a group learning experience. A major limitation was that the teaching style of the facilitator was not measured.