Anatomical Sciences Education最新文献

Impostor syndrome is particularly prevalent among high-achieving individuals, making medical students a prime target for this condition. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of impostor syndrome among medical students in Turkiye and to examine the associated demographic characteristics. Additionally, by investigating the relationship between impostor syndrome and anatomical self-efficacy, this study aimed to explore how impostor syndrome impacts the anatomical learning process of medical students. At the University of Health Sciences Medical Faculty, a randomly selected cohort of students from the second to sixth years was administered the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale (CIPS) and the Anatomy Self-Efficacy Perception Scale alongside questions about their demographic characteristics. The final study included 121 women and 76 men. 43.7% of the participants were identified as having significant or intense impostor syndrome (SIF). Among students with low or very low anatomical self-efficacy, 71.4% exhibited SIF, 28.6% had moderate impostor experiences (MIE), and none displayed few impostor characteristics (FIC). Further analysis revealed that among students with high anatomical self-efficacy, FIC, MIE, and SIF rates were 31.2%, 50%, and 18.8%, respectively (p < 0.05). This study examined previously unstudied medical students, despite their likelihood of being targeted by impostor syndrome. The findings suggest that the possibility of experiencing impostor syndrome increases with the prevalence of low anatomical self-efficacy. However, moderate or high self-efficacy students are not entirely exempt from impostor feelings.

Neuroanatomy education has evolved and improved over the years, driven by advances in technology that have led to the development of innovative interactive digital and immersive learning resources. While neuroanatomy educators have been keeping pace with and harnessing these technology advances, many medical students still struggle to apply their basic neuroanatomy knowledge in a clinical context. Furthermore, the effectiveness of multimedia resources in improving medical students' understanding of structural and functional neuroanatomy has received limited attention. A systematic review was conducted to document neuroanatomy multimedia resources that were designed for pre-clinical medical students and assessed their effectiveness in improving medical students' understanding of structural and functional neuroanatomy. Twenty-nine articles were eligible to address the study objective and were appraised according to PRISMA-P guidelines. This review concluded that neuroanatomy multimedia resources are primarily used as supplementary learning tools. However, due to a lack of robust evidence, no definitive conclusions can be made about their effectiveness in enhancing students' understanding of neuroanatomy. Nevertheless, this systematic review found that most neuroanatomy multimedia resources are effective in supporting students' understanding of structural neuroanatomy but less so for functional and clinical neuroanatomy. Additionally, static multimedia elements were more prevalent than dynamic ones. Moving forward, the thoughtful and informed use of multimedia elements could help establish resources that better integrate structural and functional neuroanatomy with their clinical and real-life applications, ultimately bridging the gap between neuroanatomy and clinical neurology.

Narrative inquiry (NI) is a rich methodological approach centered around the analysis of stories. While NI has great value within health professions education research, it may be overwhelming for novice researchers (or those new to NI) to employ in practice. This article draws from the first author's doctoral study experiences alongside the supervisors (i.e., co-authors). By highlighting our decision-making processes, we aim to encourage researchers to consider using NI within their research contexts. This work also illustrates the value of NI within health professions education research. We discuss the main challenges we faced when using NI including the diversity of NI conceptualizations, the different definitions of a story, and the multitude of possibilities to approach data analysis. We then outline the approach we took to analyze narrative data (re-storying, narrative synthesis, and thematic analysis) and describe the process used to visually represent the data as journey maps, inspired by Kurt Vonnegut's "Cinderella" story. In doing so, we seek to demonstrate the potential for NI approaches to enrich the diversity, breadth, and depth of health professions education research and, by extension, influence educational practice.

Novice faculty mentors often struggle with the transition from mentee to mentor. Although they may face similar challenges, each mentor's experience and journey of professional identity formation is unique, influenced by their background, experiences, relationships, and context. This autoethnographic study describes my personal experiences as a first-year faculty mentor in medical education, including the challenges I encountered, lessons I learned, and recommendations I have for novice faculty mentors in similar situations. Between January and August 2024, I recorded a series of reflective audio diaries after mentor-mentee project meetings. Each audio diary followed a semi-structured format and included my description of events, critical reflections, and mentoring plans. I then performed reflexive thematic analysis on the audio diaries using both deductive codes based on Transformative Learning Theory and inductive codes derived from the collected data. Through this analysis, I generated the overarching theme of The Balancing Act, in which faculty mentors must constantly balance an ever-shifting collection of competing factors in their mentoring relationships (e.g., time, effort, contributions, and expectations). This theme also included five sub-themes: (i) Balancing Project Contributions, (ii) Balancing Time and Obligations, (iii) Balancing Oversight and Autonomy, (iv) Shifting the Balance, and (v) Communicating the Balance. Although I found The Balancing Act challenging to achieve in my first year, clear and consistent communication greatly reduced the difficulty. With continued practice and reflection, I believe my skills in navigating The Balancing Act will improve further, allowing me to support mentees more effectively.

The popularity of escape rooms as a teaching tool in medical education has grown in recent years due to their ability to increase knowledge, self-confidence, and promote team-based skills. To increase efficacy in learning head and neck anatomy, a virtual escape room was built and employed as a review with a Health Professions Anatomy course. The concept was that students were trapped within the brain and had to determine the correct cranial nerve exit. One hundred thirty-nine students participated in a pre-post single-arm pilot. There was a significant difference (p < 0.01) in the overall pretest score (55.08%) compared with the posttest (70.17%). On the post-activity survey, 82.1% of students agreed/strongly agreed that the activity was a productive use of time; 90.5% thought it was an effective team-building activity; 96.8% thought it encouraged the use of communication and collaborative skills; 66.32% felt more confident about the material after the activity; 92.6% said it helped expose gaps in knowledge; and 75.8% planned to play the escape room again as a review for their exam. Overall, the use of a virtual escape room was an effective mechanism to increase students' knowledge and confidence related to anatomy and is an active learning strategy that encourages teamwork and communication skills.

Game-based learning research in the area of medical education has increased drastically in the last 10 years. It has become an area of interest because adding games to educational scenarios has been shown to increase engagement and motivation as well as improve academic outcomes for students. There are still gaps within this research, as prior investigations have not had control groups, assessed knowledge gain, or assessed motivation using a validated survey. The research described in this article has compared a digital escape room game to a timed PowerPoint review method with individual or team participation and the effect on short-term knowledge and motivation. The authors hypothesized that students who participate in the game review session or a session with team participation will have increased motivation and short-term knowledge compared to those in a traditional review session or participating alone. The results of this study suggest that an effective way to gamify a review session would be to offer a digital escape room game that allows for team participation, as this combination showed an increase in short-term knowledge, motivation, and demonstrated greater enjoyment by the participants. When used in this way, the benefits of gamified learning can be maximized by anatomical educators.

The practice of involving students in designing pedagogical resources, including gamified learning tools, is often underutilized. Traditionally, students are engaged in usability and efficacy testing of finalized learning tools, limiting their ability to shape the learning experience from inception. However, adopting a Students as Partners (SAP) approach allows for their involvement earlier and throughout the design and development process. Design thinking offers a structured methodology to optimize this partnership, providing a learner-centered approach to creating gamified learning tools with students for students. This process fosters a deep understanding of students' needs (empathizing and defining learners' needs), incorporates their ideas (challenging assumptions and idea creation), and enables iterative feedback (involvement in prototyping and testing). In this article, we describe how the design thinking methodology, in collaboration with SAP, was utilized to develop Anat-O-MEE, a gamified learning toolkit designed to enhance students' three-dimensional (3D) spatial reasoning skills in anatomy. The toolkit consists of three scaffolded levels-Map, Explore, and Extrapolate-which progressively support the transition from 2D to 3D anatomical understanding. Student partners played an active role in user-interface testing, functionality assessments, and alpha testing of games and tasks, contributing to iterative refinements in both design and content.

While gamified learning platforms show promise for engaging digital learners and promoting active learning, evidence of their effectiveness in predicting academic outcomes remains limited. This study examined how engagement patterns and incentives impact academic outcomes in a gamified environment to determine whether a formative question bank enhances engagement, supports self-regulated learning, and provides data to guide academic support. First-year medical students (N = 201) participated in an optional gamified question bank delivering weekly questions across a five-block foundational sciences course. Student engagement was quantified using a Player Efficiency Rating (PER) incorporating accuracy, consistency, and response timelines. Statistical analyses examined correlations between engagement metrics and academic performance, comparing response patterns across student performance tertiles. Ninety-seven percent of students participated, achieving a mean accuracy of 79.8%. PER showed strong positive correlations with final course grades (R = 0.30, p < 0.001). High-performing students responded to questions significantly earlier than low-performing students (p < 0.01). Students in the highest engagement tertile achieved significantly higher final grades than middle and low-engagement groups (p < 0.001). Question accuracy consistently correlated with summative knowledge scores across all course blocks. An externally incentivized block demonstrated the highest participation (85.6%) and accuracy (86.5%). A gamified question bank effectively promotes beneficial study behaviors and reliably predicts academic performance. Early engagement was linked to higher achievement, while low engagement correlated with lower exam performance, highlighting the opportunity to identify academically at-risk students. These findings support gamified platforms as valuable tools for enhancing learning outcomes and enabling early intervention strategies.