Measuring medical students' motivation to learning anatomy by cadaveric dissection

Abstract

Motivation and learning are inter-related. It is well known that motivating learners is clearly a complex endeavor, which can be influenced by the educational program and the learning environment. Limited research has been conducted to examine students' motivation as a method to assess the effectiveness of dissection in medical education. This study aimed to assess and analyze students' motivation following their dissection experience. A 29-item survey was developed based on the Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction model of motivation. Descriptive statistics were undertaken to describe students' motivation to the dissection experience. T-test and ANOVA were used to compare differences in motivational scores between gender and educational characteristics of students. Dissection activities appear to promote students' motivation. Gender difference was statistically significant as males were more motivated by the dissection experience than females. Comparison between students with different knowledge of anatomy was also significantly different. The study is an important step in the motivational design to improve students' motivation to learn. The outcome of this study provides guidance to the selection of specific strategies to increase motivation by generating motivational strategies/tactics to facilitate learning. Anat Sci Educ 10: 363-371. © 2016 American Association of Anatomists.

Stimulating Intrinsic Motivation in Millennial Students: A New Generation, a New Approach

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“…The online environment already exerts great influence on education, and present‐day students prefer easily accessible technological options for learning (Tanaka et al, ; Croffoot et al, ; Lysak et al, ). However, providing such options to students is often challenging for educators (Puertas et al, ; Shatto and Erwin, ), as many lack the motivation (Cook and Artino, ; Abdel Meguid and Khalil, ) or technological expertise (Ommering and Dekker, ; Luthar, ) to incorporate these tools in their teaching repertoire.…”

“…The emphasis on learning styles in students is a relatively new and often contentious concept (O'Mahony et al, ; Abdel Meguid and Khalil, ; Christensen et al, ) as educators from earlier generations have less regard for its relevance in teaching (Cianciolo et al, ; Ma et al, ). The learning style of an individual is described as a set of factors, behaviors, and attitudes that facilitate the acquisition of information in that individual (Boyce et al, ; Cook and Artino, ).…”

“…Training through simulation exercises offers pragmatic opportunities to build competence (Khalaila, ; Gillispie, ) and confidence (Barrett et al, ) in an interactive manner (Desy et al, ; Pandey et al, ) and within a risk‐free environment. The modalities that can be employed include, but are not limited to, screen‐based computer simulators (Abdel Meguid and Khalil, ; Havyer et al, ), standardized patients (Marks, ), complex task trainers (Rogers and Tutty, ; Christensen et al, ), and realistic patient simulators (Alcamo et al, ; Hill et al, ). These tools can be easily adapted to represent a very wide variety of client conditions (Miller, ; Kusurkar, ) that can be t ailored to different levels of difficulty ( Strombach et al, ; Raza et al, ) .…”

Using the Jigsaw Method to Teach Abdominal Anatomy

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