• Monalisa Biswas, Vijetha Shenoy Belle, GeethaDepartment of Biochemistry, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India., Varashree Bs, Ravindra M Maradi, Vivek R Joshi, and Krishnananda Prabhu.
• Department of Biochemistry, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India.
• Ir J Med Sci. 2023 Oct 1; 192 (5): 233723432337-2343.

ObjectiveThis study aims to understand the learning preferences and perception of medical laboratory technologists on sudden shift from offline to online training sessions during COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsMicrosoft form containing twenty-four questions was circulated to the twenty-five laboratory technologists after 1 year of online continuous professional development training. VARK questionnaire was circulated to understand the learning style.ResultsProvision of recording lectures, significant reduction of performance anxiety, anxiety associated with criticism, and QA sessions emerged as the major positive aspects of a virtual training platform. Analysis of learning preferences revealed that most technologists had a unimodal aural (45%) or kinesthetics (33%) than visual (11%) and reading (11%) learning preference. In bimodal learning preference, AK (44.44%) emerged as the predominant form. Forty percent of the technologists showed trimodal learning pattern with 50% among them showing an ARK pattern while 25% each showing VAK and VRK patterns of learning preferences.ConclusionMedical laboratory technologists adapted well to the sudden shift from offline to online continuous development programs. However, efficient managerial mechanisms to address the major perceived hurdles and designing a multimodal training module to accommodate the learning preferences of our technologists can ensure enthusiastic participation and effective learning among medical laboratory technologists.© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland.

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