Analysis Of The Efficacy Of Various Types of Preparatory Work For The Gross Anatomy Laboratory
Authors: DeVaul Nicole , Brown Kirsten 
Published: April 2020

Educators are always looking for ways to provide more content to students without the student feeling overwhelmed and still performing well in the course. One way this is done is to provide preparatory work prior to class so the educator can focus on applying concepts in class, thereby guiding students to higher levels of learning domains. The literature informs educators that active learning is one way to help students apply concepts. There is also literature on how specific teaching techniques, such as videos, interactive modules, or 3‐dimensional imaging, enable knowledge acquisition and application. However, there is little research on the most effective method of delivering preparatory content. This study aims to explore the most effective preparatory work for students to acquire baseline knowledge prior to gross anatomy laboratory sessions.

Consenting graduate students (n=21) in an anatomy course were divided into three groups (A, B, and C). For each dissection‐based laboratory session, each group was assigned a type of preparatory work: typed notes, labeled images, or a video describing the labeled images. Students were asked to spend 30–40 minutes reviewing the preparatory work. At the beginning of the session, students’ knowledge was assessed with a short, fill‐in‐the‐blank (FITB) quiz identifying structures on cadaveric specimens. At the end of the session, students filled out a short survey on their perceptions of the preparatory work. Throughout the semester, each group rotated through the three different preparatory assignments. Differences in quiz scores between groups were compared using one‐way ANOVA in R‐software (v.3.6.0) for each laboratory session.

This study analyzed overall, if there was a type of preparatory work that helped students acquire knowledge prior to application in a laboratory session. Results do not suggest that one type of preparatory work is preferable over another for student knowledge acquisition. Overall, quiz scores were lower than expected, indicating that students were not using the preparatory work prior to attending the laboratory session. It should be noted that students were required to use the preparatory work. After a question was added to the quizzes whether they did the preparatory work or not, students indicated that they did not complete the preparatory work. Survey data demonstrates that students prefer content that incorporates aspects of each type of preparatory work. For example, those that watched the video requested notes and/or charts; those that had notes requested images; those that had labeled images requested more details. These data suggests that providing information on location of structures wasn’t enough for students. Based on both the quiz scores and survey data collected, students require more information on how structures relate to surrounding structures with both written information and visual information in order to correctly identify structures in the gross anatomy laboratory. Therefore preparatory work for gross anatomy laboratory sessions should be multi‐modal in design. This study will be repeated with the next cohort of graduate anatomy students in Spring 2020.