Students’ Perceptions and Attitudes After Exposure to Three Different Instructional Strategies in Applied Anatomy

Abstract

Background The advancements of technologies have developed anatomical education into a new era. The study aims to assess medical students’ performance and overall satisfaction who used the anatomage table and plastinated specimens for the teaching and learning anatomy courses. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted on students of the first-year college of medicine at Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University (IMSIU). Students were randomly distributed equally into three groups A, B, and C. All groups were taken two sessions of lectures for one hour each. Each lecture was followed by a practical session of two hours. Group A learned with the “Anatomage” table and Group B learned the same topics on plastinated specimens. Group C was learning on both plastinated specimens and the “Anatomage” table. The objective structured practical examination was given to all students immediately after the practical sessions. A structured questionnaire was given to each group to determine the students’ views on the educational methods. Results There was a statistically significant difference between the means of the total scale scores for the three teaching methods, where students expressed a higher attitude towards both strategies for teaching in comparison to the anatomage table and plastinated models for teaching, where the means were 18±4.4, 18.3±4.6, 20.4±5.6, respectively, F=12.6 and P=0.0001. There were higher and positive students’ attitudes regarding the five statements in favor of both models teaching compared to anatomage table and plastinated model teaching alone. Conclusion The first-year medical students have valued the combination of anatomage table and plastinated prosections in learning and assessing anatomy education at the undergraduate level. The advantages outweigh the limitation of these educational tools.

Three-Dimensional Virtual Anatomy as a New Approach for Medical Student’s Learning

“…One report demonstrated that the majority of medical students of Ethiopia University was particularly satisfied with learning medicine using this touch screen table [ 34 ]. This finding was then confirmed by Bin Abdulrahman and coworkers [ 35 ], who performed a cross-sectional study on medical students of the first year of Saud Islamic University, collecting a broad consensus on the use of the anatomical table for learning. Furthermore, this study suggests that the virtual reality-based computer technology is more effective than the traditional method in the learning of anatomy, since the users can understand in a 3D way the size, position, and relationships of organs, vessels, nerves, and muscles [ 35 ].…”

“…This finding was then confirmed by Bin Abdulrahman and coworkers [ 35 ], who performed a cross-sectional study on medical students of the first year of Saud Islamic University, collecting a broad consensus on the use of the anatomical table for learning. Furthermore, this study suggests that the virtual reality-based computer technology is more effective than the traditional method in the learning of anatomy, since the users can understand in a 3D way the size, position, and relationships of organs, vessels, nerves, and muscles [ 35 ]. Therefore, Anatomage is an excellent virtual system with which to learn 3D realistic anatomy, allowing the exploration of, with high resolution, all anatomical districts, playing a crucial role not only for medical student education, but in the radiological and surgical fields, as well.…”

Medical Students’ Perspective – Students’ Perceptions and Attitudes After Exposure to Three Different Instructional Strategies in Applied Anatomy [Letter]

“…It was a pleasure to read the study by Bin Abdulrahman et al 1 regarding anatomy teaching methods and whether anatomage, plastinated specimens or combining both methods were more effective in first year medical students. As medical students ourselves, we feel that utilising multiple resources may be beneficial, however the long-term improvement in anatomy understanding and consolidation is hard to determine.…”

Students’ learning experiences of three-dimensional printed models and plastinated specimens: a qualitative analysis

“…However, depending on the choice of learning tools used between the control and intervention groups, as well as different anatomical regions [ 14 , 22 ], the results varied. For instance, the students’ learning satisfaction and their attitudes towards plastinated specimens were higher when combined with wet prosections [ 11 , 15 ] and Anatomage table [ 20 ]. Similarly, the use of plastinated specimens reflected positive outcomes in the students’ objective knowledge [ 23 , 24 ].…”

“…Many studies investigated the learning outcomes/efficacy between various types of anatomy tools such as plastinated specimens, 2D images, wet prosections, Anatomage table (Anatomage Inc., San Jose, CA) and 3DP models [11,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. However, depending on the choice of learning tools used between the control and intervention groups, as well as different anatomical regions [14,22], the results varied.…”