Purpose: Learning focus has shifted from conventional teacher-centered to student-centered; therefore, methods used to support and encourage learners must be considered. Meanwhile, the individual differences between learners should be taken into consideration by medical educators. Aiming to achieve a better learning experience, the current study investigates the relationship between personality traits and learning styles and their effect on students’ academic achievement.
Subjects and Methods: An analytical, cross-sectional study, encompassing a sample of 333 undergraduate first-year medical students, at the Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University in Egypt was conducted. The Big Five personality traits test and VARK learning styles questionnaires were used to assess students’ personality traits and learning styles, respectively, in the medical education module which is a part of the Foundation II module. The former is five weeks’ duration and is followed by a summative exam at the end. Students’ academic achievement was determined from their grades in Foundation II module by the end of the semester.
Results: Study findings generally indicate that the highest domain of learning styles among students is the kinesthetic domain. A statistically significant difference between males and females regarding their learning style preferences was detected. Also, there was a statistically significant relationship between auditory and kinesthetic learning styles and academic achievement. Though there was a significant relationship between kinesthetic learning style with both openness traits and academic achievement, no significant statistical relationship was found between any of the personality traits and academic achievement.
Conclusion: This study concludes that learning style could affect students’ academic achievement. It reveals that the kinesthetic learning style is the most preferred learning style among our medical students, also the agreeableness and openness traits were the most common personality traits among them. No significant relationship was detected between personality traits and academic achievement.

Keywords: learning styles, personality traits, academic achievement, active learning, medical education

中文翻译：

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人格特质和学习方式对医学本科生学业成绩的影响

目的：学习重点已从传统的以教师为中心转变为以学生为中心；因此，必须考虑用于支持和鼓励学习者的方法。同时，医学教育工作者应考虑学习者之间的个体差异。为了获得更好的学习体验，目前的研究调查了人格特质和学习方式之间的关系及其对学生学业成绩的影响。
主题和方法：在埃及苏伊士运河大学医学院进行了一项分析性横断面研究，其中包括 333 名本科一年级医学生的样本。在作为基础 II 模块一部分的医学教育模块中，大五人格特质测试和 VARK 学习风格问卷分别用于评估学生的人格特质和学习风格。前者是五周的持续时间，最后是总结性考试。学生的学业成绩由学期末他们在基础 II 模块中的成绩确定。
结果：研究结果普遍表明，学生学习风格的最高领域是动觉领域。检测到男性和女性在学习风格偏好方面存在统计学上的显着差异。此外，听觉和动觉学习风格与学业成就之间存在统计学上的显着关系。尽管动觉学习风格与开放性特质和学业成就之间存在显着关系，但在任何人格特质与学业成就之间均未发现显着的统计关系。
结论：本研究得出结论，学习方式会影响学生的学业成绩。结果表明，动觉学习方式是我们医学生最喜欢的学习方式，而随和和开放的性格特征是其中最常见的人格特质。人格特质与学业成就之间未发现显着关系。

关键词：学习方式，人格特质，学业成就，主动学习，医学教育