Courtney Eleazer
Study Approaches, Course Design, and Academic Success
The questions of “What qualities distinguish successful, or high-performing students from low-performing students in anatomy courses?” and “How does course structure play a role in encouraging successful study techniques?” were two that members Courtney Eleazer, Ph.D., and Rebecca Scopa Kelso, Ph.D., both of the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine, recently tackled. Their study, “Influence of study approaches and course design on academic success in the undergraduate anatomy laboratory,” is currently available in Anatomical Sciences Education.
Surveys were administered to students enrolled in three human anatomy lab courses (n=1,274) at two separate institutions. Topics included how they studied for the lab portion of the course. Courses were varied in their approach (i.e., different lecture and teaching styles, different levels of guidance from instructor), but all were introductory level, stand-alone courses, with high enrollment (150-300 students per semester).
Drs. Eleazer and Kelso noted their findings.
"High performing anatomy students in three undergraduate anatomy courses engage in more active study approaches (e.g., quizzing in groups and asking the instructor questions), which are known to be linked to course success. Although these successful study techniques are strongly encouraged by instructors in all the courses surveyed, many students in the less guided (self-directed) laboratory courses continue to utilize passive study approaches and demonstrate lower passing rates. Students in an active learning class with a more strictly-guided laboratory design possess the greatest rate of collaborative learning and maintain the highest course grades despite not having the highest average in-coming GPA. These results support previous research demonstrating that student performance is more greatly enhanced by a classroom environment that directly engages students in successful study practice rather than one that simply encourages students to employ such strategies on their own."
What struck the authors as most interesting in their survey results was the tendency for students in the more structured, active learning course to engage mainly in group quizzing and avoid using many of the other study techniques surveyed. “We had expected that an active learning environment would encourage greater engagement with a variety of classroom resources. Given the higher proportion of successful students in this course, we suspect a highly structured laboratory format reduces the number of resources required to succeed and/or improves the ability to recognize and employ the most effective study techniques.”
The authors dole up some useful tips to their fellow anatomy educators based on what they found in this study:
To learn more about this study, view the article online.
The questions of “What qualities distinguish successful, or high-performing students from low-performing students in anatomy courses?” and “How does course structure play a role in encouraging successful study techniques?” were two that members Courtney Eleazer, Ph.D., and Rebecca Scopa Kelso, Ph.D., both of the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine, recently tackled. Their study, “Influence of study approaches and course design on academic success in the undergraduate anatomy laboratory,” is currently available in Anatomical Sciences Education.
Surveys were administered to students enrolled in three human anatomy lab courses (n=1,274) at two separate institutions. Topics included how they studied for the lab portion of the course. Courses were varied in their approach (i.e., different lecture and teaching styles, different levels of guidance from instructor), but all were introductory level, stand-alone courses, with high enrollment (150-300 students per semester).
Drs. Eleazer and Kelso noted their findings.
"High performing anatomy students in three undergraduate anatomy courses engage in more active study approaches (e.g., quizzing in groups and asking the instructor questions), which are known to be linked to course success. Although these successful study techniques are strongly encouraged by instructors in all the courses surveyed, many students in the less guided (self-directed) laboratory courses continue to utilize passive study approaches and demonstrate lower passing rates. Students in an active learning class with a more strictly-guided laboratory design possess the greatest rate of collaborative learning and maintain the highest course grades despite not having the highest average in-coming GPA. These results support previous research demonstrating that student performance is more greatly enhanced by a classroom environment that directly engages students in successful study practice rather than one that simply encourages students to employ such strategies on their own."
What struck the authors as most interesting in their survey results was the tendency for students in the more structured, active learning course to engage mainly in group quizzing and avoid using many of the other study techniques surveyed. “We had expected that an active learning environment would encourage greater engagement with a variety of classroom resources. Given the higher proportion of successful students in this course, we suspect a highly structured laboratory format reduces the number of resources required to succeed and/or improves the ability to recognize and employ the most effective study techniques.”
The authors dole up some useful tips to their fellow anatomy educators based on what they found in this study:
- Student performance is best improved when the course is carefully designed to reduce the cognitive load involved with navigating the course material. If too many course objectives are self-directed and/or the design of the course places too much of a burden on students to identify best study practices, students have less time to spend engaged in deeper and more meaningful learning approaches.
- The more structured the laboratory content, the greater the number of high-performing students. The highest performing lab had a station-based design that facilitated collaborative learning while apportioning material into timed segments to assist students with time management.
- A flipped lecture course design with active learning exercises appears to have improved the capacity to identify anatomical structures through reasoning and appreciation of structure-function relationships. Active exercises often employed in anatomy laboratories include: case-based questions, problem-based learning, computer-assisted learning, peer-teaching, student-led cadaveric dissection, clay modeling, and integration of radiological imaging.
To learn more about this study, view the article online.
