Medical Students’ Opinions of Anatomy Teaching Resources and Their Role in Achieving Learning Outcomes

Abstract

Several teaching resources are used to enhance the learning of anatomy. The purpose of this study was to examine the preference of medical students on the use of various resources to learn anatomy and their link to 12 learning outcomes. A selected response item questionnaire was administered that asked students to rank six laboratory teaching resources from most to least preferred, and rate how useful these six resources were towards achieving 12 learning outcomes. These learning outcomes covered many of the learning domains such as demonstrating an understanding of anatomy, visualizing structures, appreciating clinical correlations, and understanding anatomical variations. Medical students ranked cadaveric prosections paired with an active learning clinical tutorial as the highest rank and most useful resource for learning anatomy, followed by dissection videos, electronic resources, and printed material, followed by plastinated specimens and plastic models. Overall, cadaveric prosections were also rated as the most helpful teaching resource in achieving various learning outcomes. In conclusion, anatomy teachers should provide prosections coupled with clinical tutorials as well as electronic resources as students prefer these and think they help them learn anatomy. Future studies will investigate the impact of using these resources on students’ performance.

Exploring the use of a digital anatomy learning platform in a second‐year medical student cohort

“…Typically, participants would require multiple sources in the acquisition of their knowledge. This finding is supported by Abdullah et al, 13 who found that medical students used six resources (wholebody donor dissection, dissection videos, plastinated specimens, plastic models, printed resources and electronic resources) in their anatomy studies. In the current study, fewer resources (text resources, online videos and Primal Pictures) were used by participants.…”

“…Whole‐body donor dissection is consistently reported by students as one of the most effective ways to learn anatomy 13 . However, in an editorial, Lachman and Pawlina 30 point out that there is no empirical evidence to prove that whole‐body donor dissection leads to better academic outcomes in early undergraduate training; rather, continuous and effective engagement with the subject matter leads to better academic outcomes.…”

“…Whole-body donor dissection is consistently reported by students as one of the most effective ways to learn anatomy. 13 However, in an editorial, Lachman and Pawlina 30 point out that there is no empirical evidence to prove that whole-body donor dissection leads to better academic outcomes in early undergraduate training; rather, continuous and effective engagement with the subject matter leads to better academic outcomes. Considering the above statement, this study identified that participants use a combination of Primal Pictures and whole-body donor dissection to extend exposure to the subject matter which potentially leads to beneficial academic outcomes.…”

“…With multiple factors influencing students' learning with the use of digital anatomy learning platforms, it is important to understand how students use these platforms in their learning. While the challenges and opportunities of digital anatomy learning resources have been well described, 13,14 there is a paucity of literature on specific pedagogical frameworks that could inform the implementation of digital anatomy learning platforms in curricula and how they impact students' learning processes. 14 However, Laurillard's conversational framework offers a universal approach to understanding complexities of learning from the student's perspective, [15][16][17] and may prove valuable in this instance.…”

Perceptions on the Use of Dissection Videos in Learning Gastrointestinal Anatomy among Medical Students

“…The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented challenges in medical education, including the University of the Philippines College of Medicine, disrupting traditional gross anatomy laboratory dissection methods and necessitating alternative learning modalities. 2 An international cohort of medical students claimed that the epidemic had a considerable unfavorable overall effect on their undergraduate education. 3 The role of non-cadaveric teaching methods in gross anatomy is still unclear.…”