Interplays of psychometric abilities on learning gross anatomy

Abstract

In recent years, there has been international debate concerning how students learn anatomy. The rapid increase in scientific knowledge has put pressure on the place of anatomy within the medical and allied health professional curricula, as well as the design and structure of anatomy courses. In this regard, relatively little is known about what medical and allied health professions students want from an anatomy course or how they learn it. To assess students' learning approaches and perceptions of anatomy, a series of psychometric tests were administered to Medical (n=82), Podiatry (n=21), and Pharmacy (n=74) students in the United Kingdom. Analysis of the Anatomy Learning Experience (ALE) questionnaire revealed a predominantly positive attitude towards anatomy and the dissection room, with most valuing cadaveric dissection and not regarding it as a daunting environment. Further to this, analysis of the Approaches to Studying Inventory for Students (ASSIST) revealed predominant preferences for strategic and deep approaches. Personality traits were associated with certain learning approaches; neuroticism with surface (p=0.038), conscientiousness with both a deep and strategic approach (p=0.000 and p=0.060 respectively). Certain personality traits were also found to be associated with anatomy experience e.g. neuroticism and achievement striving felt the most effective way to learn was to get their hands in and feel for structures (p=0.044 and p=0.012 respectively). This study concludes that undergraduate students of medicine, podiatry and pharmacy learn anatomy in slightly different ways. Preparation for classroom activities should centre on the promotion of an optimum learning environment and teaching strategies which promote a deep approach to learning. Understanding students' personality and learning experiences should help teachers improve the students' learning of anatomy for effective application to clinical practice.

A Multicentre Analysis of Approaches to Learning and Student Experiences of Learning Anatomy Online

“…The proportion of students adopting a deep approach to learning reported here (44.3%) is similar to results from previous studies that analysed students' approach to learning anatomy in traditional face-to-face formats [5,41,42,45,47,48]. Our results suggest that learning anatomy online does not limit the number of students adopting deep approaches to learning and might suggest that students remained internally motivated and interested in anatomy education, despite the shift in delivery to an online format.…”

Concluding Commentary. Life Sciences in an Integrated Medical Curriculum: Continuing the Conversation

“…The submissions we received have primarily surrounded innovative learning and teaching approaches including the use of technology with respect to social media (Whyte & Hennessy, 2017), 3D printing (Li et al, 2017), peer teaching (Border et al, 2017;Simpson, Curley, Veloso Costa, & Ahmed, 2017), artistic learning methods (James, O'Connor, & Nagraj, 2017;Keenan, Hutchinson, & Bell, 2017), the flipped classroom (Stoner, Caruana, & Stabile, 2017), the impact of psychometric abilities (Smith et al, 2017) and a description of an integrated Life Sciences course (Fenoll-Brunet et al, 2017). The theme also includes a call for focus on a particularly concerning worldwide Life Sciences topic (Pyatt & Bowater, 2017).…”

“…While the majority of the themed articles concerned anatomy education (Border et al, 2017;James et al, 2017;Keenan et al, 2017;Li et al, 2017;Smith et al, 2017;Stoner et al, 2017;Whyte & Hennessy, 2017), this would perhaps be expected given the apparent proportion of active researchers and published literature in this field when compared to other Life Sciences disciplines. However, we have also received submissions from the relatively less well represented areas of the Life Sciences including physiology (Simpson et al, 2017), microbiology and public health (Pyatt & Bowater, 2017), and the Life Sciences more generally (Fenoll-Brunet et al, 2017;.…”

“…The theme issue continued with another anatomical paper, this time an original article describing a detailed research study of the impact of psychometric abilities on anatomy learning (Smith et al, 2017). This work serves to highlight the differences between individual students and their approaches to learning and can provide Life Sciences educators with insights into how their own teaching environments can be adapted to optimise student learning.…”