Anatomy adventure: A board game for enhancing understanding of anatomy

Abstract

Certain negative factors such as fear, loss of concentration and interest in the course, lack of confidence, and undue stress have been associated with the study of anatomy. These are factors most often provoked by the unusually large curriculum, nature of the course, and the psychosocial impact of dissection. As a palliative measure, Anatomy Adventure, a board game on anatomy was designed to reduce some of these pressures, emphasize student centered and collaborative learning styles, and add fun to the process of learning while promoting understanding and retention of the subject. To assess these objectives, 95 out of over 150 medical and dental students who expressed willingness to be part of the study were recruited and divided into a Game group and a Non-game group. A pretest written examination was given to both groups, participants in the Game group were allowed to play the game for ten days, after which a post-test examination was also given. A 20-item questionnaire rated on a three-point scale to access student's perception of the game was given to the game group. The post-test scores of the game group were significantly higher (P < 0.05) than those of the non-game counterparts. Also the post-test score of the game based group was significantly better (P < 0.05) than their pretest. The students in their feedback noted in very high proportions that the game was interesting, highly informative, encouraged team work, improved their attitude, and perception to gross anatomy.

Let&#8217;s Kahoot! Anatomy

“…Promoting game-based learning can support medical student engagement with anatomy and the findings of this study are consistent with the literature on digital games and their use as a tool for fun and engagement in education (Griffiths, 2002;Anyanwu, 2014;Janssen, 2015). In our study, the observed classroom environment benefits can be listed as higher attendance and participation, and more focused and engaged students in class.…”

A little healthy competition: using mixed methods to pilot a team-based digital game for boosting medical student engagement with anatomy and histology content

“…Anatomy is considered a challenging subject for medical students to learn due to the complexity of the subject [10], and the breadth of the medical curriculum [11]. The literature suggests that other problems in effectively learning anatomy may include finding the topic stressful, struggling to understand the complexities of the subject and lack of confidence with the material [12, 13].…”

“…There is one study that used a board game to encourage collaborative learning and reduce loss of confidence and concentration with medical students learning anatomy [10]. Additionally a card game was used to help reinforce content from lectures for optometry students learning anatomy [14].…”

Report of the 2013-2014 Academic Affairs Committee

“…Numerous board-type games covering topics such as neonatology, 23 anatomy, 24 and metabolic pathways 25 have been developed and used successfully in health care education. Students participating in those games reported high learner satisfaction and scored higher on examinations than control groups.…”