Perceptions on primary mental abilities of second year medical students in mauritius

Aims and Objectives: Primary mental abilities play a major role in learning process. The present study was done to understand perceptions of learners on their primary mental abilities of learning. Methods: An 8-item questionnaire with modified Likert-like scale was administered to 245 students in Mauritius while being in second year of graduate medical program. Data was arranged, analyzed, and classified, and percentages were calculated. Results: The learners recorded highest percentages for perception of having good verbal fluency and inductive reasoning (77.1% each). Much lower percentages were recorded for verbal comprehension (24.1%), “memory capacity” (33.9%), and “comprehension of scientific terminology” (57.1%). Values were 67.3% for perceptual speed, 66.5% for spatial ability, and 64.5% for numerical ability. Conclusion: Learners recorded perception of good abilities for verbal fluency and inductive reasoning, and also perceptual speed, spatial ability, and numerical ability. Verbal comprehension, memory capacity, and comprehension of scientific terminology had lower values. These findings are useful to learners and instructors to understand the areas to be focused upon during teaching and learning, and to appropriately modify the curriculum delivery. This work also provided a useful questionnaire for knowing learners’ perceptions on primary mental abilities.