Human Dissection and Its Impact on Face-to-Face and Hybrid OT Students’ Academic Performances

Human dissection has been a commonly used method of teaching anatomy to medical students and other science disciplines. However, dissection benefits have been inconclusive^1,2. The purpose of this study was to investigate if students who participate in human dissection receive higher course grades than students who do not dissect. This is important to the field of occupational therapy as the results will assist occupational therapy schools in determining the best methods of learning anatomy and developing a strong curriculum that will prepare future occupational therapists. The study was a nonrandomized design that included a convenience sample, consisting of two groups from the same school who participated in a six-credit graduate-level human anatomy course. Group A (n=83) learned from face-to-face instruction with cadaveric dissection and prosection. Group B (n=57) learned using a hybrid learning approach with prosected cadavers only and did not participate in dissection. The following objective measures were analyzed between the two groups: average anatomy laboratory exam grades, average anatomy final course grades for lecture and laboratory grades, and average grades in subsequent courses within the occupational therapy program that included neuroscience, orthopedics, and kinesiology and occupational therapy knowledge exam (OTKE) scores. Data was analyzed using a multivariate ANOVA with group (A versus B) as the fixed factor to compare mean scores between the two groups. Short-term academic performance was higher for students using a hybrid learning approach who did not dissect cadavers (Group B) when compared to those students learning from a face-to-face approach who did dissect (Group A). The final course grades in anatomy for students who did not perform dissection were higher and statistically significant (p=0.010) than students who did perform dissection. There was no statistical significance found between the students’ course grades for the subsequent courses of the program. Overall, using prosected cadavers only rather than dissection with prosections may lead to higher anatomy course grades. The results reflect that it is not imperative for occupational therapy students to dissect, but rather that students may learn from prosections only. The impact of this research may be beneficial for developing future occupational therapy program curriculums.

References

1. Ashdown, L., Lewis, E., Hincke, M., & Jalali, A. (2013). Learning anatomy: Can dissection and peer-mediated teaching offer added benefits over prosection alone? ISRN Anatomy, 2013. doi:10.5402/2013/873825

2. Whelan, A., Leddy, J. J., & Ramnanan, C. J. (2018). Benefits of extracurricular participation in dissection in a prosection-based medical anatomy program. American Association of Anatomists, 11, 294-302. doi:10.1002/ase.1724