Anatomy courses frequently serve as prerequisites or requirements for health sciences programs. Due to the challenging nature of anatomy, each semester there are students remediating the course (enrolled in the course for a second time), attempting to earn a grade competitive for admissions into a program of study. In this retrospective study, remediation rates and trends in an undergraduate anatomy course with over 400 students enrolled each semester at a large Midwestern university were identified. Demographic data was collected from spring 2004 to spring 2010, including students' age, ethnicity, major of study, class standing, college admission tests (ACT and SAT®) scores, anatomy laboratory and lecture examination scores, and final anatomy grades for each semester. Eleven percent of the students repeated the course at least once. Gender, ethnicity, major of study and SAT scores were all shown to be associated with whether or not a student would need to repeat the course. On average, students who repeated anatomy demonstrated significant improvements in lecture and laboratory scores when comparing first and second enrollments in anatomy, and therefore also saw improved final course grades in their second enrollment. These findings will aid future instructors to identify and assist at-risk students to succeed in anatomy. Instructors from other institutions may also find the results to be useful for identifying students at risk for struggling.

Many factors influence the way individual students study, including but not limited to: previous coursework, attitudes toward the class (motivation, intimidation, risk, etc.), metacognition, and work schedules. However, little of this research has involved medical students. The present article asks the question, "Do individual medical students study differently for different classes?" Study skills surveys were given to United States medical students at an allopathic medical school and an osteopathic medical school. Students were surveyed near the end of their first year gross anatomy course and again near the end of their first year physiology course. Survey items included Likert scale and open-ended questions about study habits and basic demographic information. The survey responses were correlated with each student's final grade percentages in the courses. Analysis revealed that the four most common study habits were reviewing lecture notes, taking practice examinations, completing learning exercises, and making drawings and diagrams. The two surveys (anatomy and physiology) from each individual were also compared to see if students reported different study habits in anatomy versus physiology. A negative correlation was found between changing study habits between courses and final anatomy grade percentages. Additional analyses suggest that those students who do change their study habits between courses are increasing the number of study strategies that they attempt. This increase in the number of study strategies attempted may not allow the student to reach the same depth of understanding as their colleagues who utilize fewer strategies.

No abstract

At Indiana University, MSCI M100: Improving Learning Skills in Anatomy is a 1‐credit hour course which supplements Anatomy A215: Basic Human Anatomy. MSCI M100 was developed in 2010 to help Anat A215 students by teaching them effective approaches to learning anatomy and becoming better regulators of their learning process.While time management is one component of regulation of learning many Anat A215 students utilize their study time inefficiently, as evidenced by the author. One MSCI M100 assignment is the study log (adapted from Classroom Assessment Techniques). Students complete a daily study log, three days prior to each of the four Anat A215 exams. Students record when and where they study, and rate their productivity during that time on a scale ranging from one to four (1=not productive, 4=very productive).Analysis of the study logs was performed to see if students’ time management changed while enrolled in MSCI M100. Preliminary results indicate there is an improvement in students’ time management between studying for the first and second Anat A215 exams. Specifically, 2nd exam study logs showed students studied, fewer hours overall (p<.000), but logged significantly more productive hours (p<.000). Student feedback (via weekly blogs for M100) indicates study logs raised student awareness of how they utilize their time. These results also support the efficacy of MSCI M100 in improving student learning skills.Grant Funding Source : NA