Stereoscopic Pelvic and Upper Thigh Model Reveals Insights into First‐Year Medical Students' Retention and Perceptions of Learning
Authors: Meyer Edgar R. , James Amber M. , Sinning Allan , Thompson Kenneth , Cui Dongmei 
Published: June 2021

While studies have explored the impact of virtual 3D models on students' anatomy learning, few studies have explored their effects on long‐term retention. This study was aimed to determine the effects of a virtual 3D stereoscopic pelvis and upper thigh model on first‐year medical students' short‐ and long‐term retention. This study also aimed to determine the relationship between first‐year medical students' spatial ability and their retention of pelvis and upper thigh anatomy. This project was approved by the University of Mississippi Medical Center Internal Review Board. The participating students (n=22) were administered a pre‐3D and post‐3D test pertaining to pelvic and upper thigh anatomy immediately before and after their virtual 3D learning experience, respectively, to measure their short‐term retention. The students were also administered a mental rotation test (MRT) to assess their spatial ability. Finally, the students completed a survey regarding their perceptions of 3D imaging and of the effectiveness of its use in teaching anatomy. Later, these students took a block exam on pelvic and lower limb anatomy and long‐term post‐3D tests one‐month and six‐months after the learning experience to measure their long‐term retention. Final results of a series of one‐way ANOVA's showed that the students' short‐term post‐3D test scores were significantly higher (p=0.038) than their pre‐3D test scores. Students' one‐month long‐term post‐3D test scores were significantly lower than their pre‐3D test scores (p=0.006), but there was no significant difference between students' six‐month long‐term post‐3D test scores and their pre‐3D test scores (p=0.729). A repeated measures ANOVA showed that the students' exam averages on questions pertaining to the pelvis and upper thigh were not significantly different (p=0.502) from the averages of randomly selected students exposed only to traditional learning methods or students who attended neither the lectures on pelvis and upper thigh anatomy nor the 3D learning sessions. Qualitative responses from students' surveys suggest that they found exposure to the 3D model to be beneficial to their learning and retention. These findings suggest that virtual 3D anatomy models have the potential to improve students' short‐term retention after their learning experience, but not necessarily their long‐term retention. Virtual 3D anatomy is perhaps best used as a supplement to traditional anatomy instruction, but not a replacement. A comparison of students' performance and perceptions suggest that while virtual 3D anatomy might be exciting, this modality alone may not provide the long‐term learning gains that they might believe to be receiving. Future research will involve improving the pelvis and upper thigh model with the addition of more anatomical structures per the opinions of clinical and basic science experts and implementing a more complete and validated model on an even larger cohort of students to measure their short‐ and long‐term learning gains.

This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.