Students' metacognitive skills and perceptions are considered important variables for high-quality learning. In this study, students' perceptions were used to identify histological threshold concepts (integrative, irreversible, transformative, and troublesome) in three health sciences curricula. A specific questionnaire was developed and validated…

Anatomy is shifting toward a greater focus on adopting digital delivery. To advance digital and authentic learning in anatomy, a flipped classroom model integrating multimodal digital resources and a multimedia group assignment was designed and implemented for first-year neuroanatomy and third-year regional anatomy curricula. A five-point Likert…

Anatomists are facing a new generation of learners who will study and work in a technology-rich environment. Indeed, digital technologies are tremendously changing how information and knowledge are communicated and retrieved. However, it remains unclear whether an anatomy assessment can be designed to promote contextual learning through…

Competent clinical reasoning skills are necessary for providing safe and effective health care. Professional level health science education programs are keenly interested in fostering effective clinical reasoning skills. As such, many programs expect students to engage in complex clinical reasoning tasks early in their education. However, early…

A challenge with large undergraduate classes is the provision of opportunities for students to construct educational documents and to obtain individualized feedback pertaining to their work. Being able to work as part of a group, to clearly express information both orally and in writing, and to self-reflect while providing constructive feedback…

Purpose: Introductory anatomy and physiology provide a core knowledge base to students within clinical health science courses. Increased student numbers, as well as reduced access to laboratory-based cadaveric resources, have created a need for enhanced learning approaches to support learning. The streamlining of courses has also resulted in the…

Anatomy and physiology courses are a foundation for numerous degrees, but experience some of the highest failure rates of all undergraduate health science programs (Higgins-Opitz & Tufts, 2014). While interventions have been developed in an attempt to remediate this concerning phenomenon, there is a paucity of evidence to determine the reason…

Science courses containing English-language terminology are a common implement in "English as a foreign language" (EFL) countries across the globe. In many of these countries, licensing examinations place added significance on terminology competence by requiring health science graduates to demonstrate mastery of English-language anatomy…

Due to increasing demands in the amount of content to be learned within a medical and health sciences curriculum, there are benefits towards exploring options for new and effective delivery modes. Augmented reality technology has the potential to enhance learning in physiology and anatomy, where students require a three-dimensional knowledge of…

The growing movement in STEM education is popularizing active learning, which has benefits for high school and undergraduate students, especially those in rural areas with limited resources. In Mississippi, daunting health disparities in incidence of stroke, cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes, and obesity warrant the implementation of…

Promoting student engagement and academic achievement in first-year anatomy and physiology courses. "Adv Physiol Educ" 43: 443-450, 2019; doi:10.1152/advan.00205.2018. Students from three undergraduate programs at James Cook University, Queensland, Australia, studying combined first-year anatomy and physiology courses, showed different…

The attitude toward a subject contributes to both academic engagement and success at university, yet it is not routinely measured in undergraduate students. Therefore, in two consecutive introductory courses in Human anatomy and physiology (HAP 1, n = 239, and HAP 2, n = 329), an instrument to quantify undergraduate students' attitude to the…

Academic content common to health science programs is often taught to a mixed group of students; however, content assessment may be consistent for each discipline. This study used a retrospective cluster analysis on such a group, first to identify high and low achieving students, and second, to determine the distribution of students within…

Anatomy and physiology teaching has undergone significant changes to keep up with advances in technology and to cater for a wide array of student specific learning approaches. This paper examines perceptions towards a variety of teaching instruments, techniques, and innovations used in the delivery and teaching of anatomy and physiology for health…

The demand for empathetic health care practitioners requires an academic curriculum suited to that need. Here we describe a series of integrated activities that were designed to foster empathy in undergraduate health science majors. By combining content and pedagogical approaches from the humanities and sciences, we asked students to reconcile…