Teaching ultrasound imaging is on the rise in undergraduate medical anatomy education. However, there is little research exploring the use of ultrasound in preparatory graduate programs. The purpose ...of this study is to identify the effects of ultrasound imaging inclusion in a graduate gross anatomy course.
Master of Medical Sciences students were enrolled in a prosection-based anatomy course that included pinned cadaver stations and an ultrasound station. Using ultrasound, teaching assistants imaged volunteers demonstrating anatomical structures students previously learned at cadaver stations. Students answered one ultrasound image question on each practical exam and were asked to participate in a pre- and post-course survey. Student practical and lecture exam scores and final course grades from the 2022 cohort were compared to a historical control cohort from 2021 via statistical analysis, including a survey administered to the 2022 cohort.
Two hundred students from the 2021 cohort and 164 students from the 2022 cohort participated in this study. Students in the 2022 cohort had significantly higher scores in 1 of the 5 practical exams (P < .05, d = .289), and 2 of the 5 written exams (P < .05, d = .207), (P < .05, d = .311). Survey data revealed increased (P < .05, d = 1.203) learning outcome achievement from pre-survey to post-survey in the intervention cohort. Students who correctly answered the ultrasound question performed significantly better on practical's 3 (P < .05) and 4 (P < .05) than those who missed the ultrasound question.
These findings suggest that ultrasound imaging in a cadaver lab is beneficial to graduate students' learning and understanding of gross anatomy.
Objectives
Teaching ultrasound imaging is on the rise in undergraduate medical anatomy education. However, there is little research exploring the use of ultrasound in preparatory graduate programs. ...The purpose of this study is to identify the effects of ultrasound imaging inclusion in a graduate gross anatomy course.
Methods
Master of Medical Sciences students were enrolled in a prosection‐based anatomy course that included pinned cadaver stations and an ultrasound station. Using ultrasound, teaching assistants imaged volunteers demonstrating anatomical structures students previously learned at cadaver stations. Students answered one ultrasound image question on each practical exam and were asked to participate in a pre‐ and post‐course survey. Student practical and lecture exam scores and final course grades from the 2022 cohort were compared to a historical control cohort from 2021 via statistical analysis, including a survey administered to the 2022 cohort.
Results
Two hundred students from the 2021 cohort and 164 students from the 2022 cohort participated in this study. Students in the 2022 cohort had significantly higher scores in 1 of the 5 practical exams (P < .05, d = .289), and 2 of the 5 written exams (P < .05, d = .207), (P < .05, d = .311). Survey data revealed increased (P < .05, d = 1.203) learning outcome achievement from pre‐survey to post‐survey in the intervention cohort. Students who correctly answered the ultrasound question performed significantly better on practical's 3 (P < .05) and 4 (P < .05) than those who missed the ultrasound question.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that ultrasound imaging in a cadaver lab is beneficial to graduate students' learning and understanding of gross anatomy.
Online learning has become an essential part of mainstream higher education. With increasing enrollments in online anatomy courses, a better understanding of effective teaching techniques for the ...online learning environment is critical. Active learning has previously shown many benefits in face‐to‐face anatomy courses, including increases in student satisfaction. Currently, no research has measured student satisfaction with active learning techniques implemented in an online graduate anatomy course. This study compares student satisfaction across four different active learning techniques (jigsaw, team‐learning module, concept mapping, and question constructing), with consideration of demographics and previous enrollment in anatomy and/or online courses. Survey questions consisted of Likert‐style, multiple‐choice, ranking, and open‐ended questions that asked students to indicate their level of satisfaction with the active learning techniques. One hundred seventy Medical Science master's students completed the online anatomy course and all seven surveys. Results showed that students were significantly more satisfied with question constructing and jigsaw than with concept mapping and team‐learning module. Additionally, historically excluded groups (underrepresented racial minorities) were generally more satisfied with active learning than non‐minority groups. Age, gender, and previous experience with anatomy did not influence the level of satisfaction. However, students with a higher‐grade point average (GPA), those with only a bachelor's degree, and those with no previous online course experience were more satisfied with active learning than students who had a lower GPA, those holding a graduate/professional degree, and those with previous online course experience. Cumulatively, these findings support the beneficial use of active learning in online anatomy courses.
Two studies investigated the effectiveness of teaching science labs online to secondary students. Study 1 compared achievement among students instructed using hands-on Chemistry labs versus those ...instructed using virtual Chemistry labs (eLabs). Study 2 compared the same groups of students again while both teachers instructed using hands-on Chemistry labs to determine whether teacher or student characteristics may have affected Study 1’s findings. Participants were high school Chemistry students from a Central Texas Independent School District. Results indicated that: students learn science effectively online, schools may experience cost savings from delivering labs online, and students gain valuable technology skills needed later in college and in the workplace.
Adult skilled readers deploy multiple comprehension and monitoring strategies while reading. A questionnaire based on a model of skilled readers was developed to characterize college students' ...knowledge and use of comprehension strategies. Grade-point averages (GPA) and Texas Academic Skills Program (TASP) reading scores were used to test whether students' self-reports of strategy use were related to academic performance. The questionnaire as a whole, and 37% of the specific strategies, differentiated higher and lower performing students in terms of GPA, and a subset of the strategies differentiated between higher and lower performing students in terms of TASP reading scores. An analysis of the overall data showed that comprehension strategy use and TASP-R scores were significantly correlated with each other and with GPA. The strategies that discriminated between students in terms of GPA performance and TASP reading scores were related to several distinct facets of reading comprehension including goal setting and goal monitoring, maintaining text comprehension at several levels of cognitive processing, and developing a memorable representation of the central ideas in the text.
Research has investigated the effects of emotional expressiveness on different developmental outcomes. Whereas an abundance of work has examined positive and negative emotional expressiveness, little ...research has investigated specific negative emotion-negative outcome relationships. That is, few studies have examined how specific negative emotions relate to specific negative psychological outcomes. Before specific negative emotion-negative outcome relationships can be investigated, a valid measure of discrete negative emotional expressiveness is needed. Two studies attempted to create and validate a scale of emotional expressiveness for negative emotions. The initial version of a discrete negative emotions scale (DNES) was constructed in a pilot study. The scale consisted initially of 120 items that assessed twelve discrete negative emotions. Study I attempted to determine the properties of the DNES and begin the task of construct validation. Study II described a revision of the DNES, based on the results of Study I, and also began the process of assessing criterion validity and establishing internal and test-retest reliability. The internal reliability, simple factor structure, construct validity, and criterion validity of the DNES were supported. Overall, eleven discrete negative emotion factors emerged across multiple factor analyses. The results of the studies have implications for understanding the role of negative expressions in development. Acquiring a valid and reliable measure of discrete negative expressiveness should help teachers and counselors explain and understand problematic behaviors that a student is exhibiting, and can help parents understand how the types of emotions they express in the home can affect their child's development. Such a scale may be a valuable research tool in which these negative emotion-negative outcome relationships can be explored and understood better.
PDF
