The Impact of Alternating Dissection in Conjunction with Reciprocal Peer Teaching on Practical Exam Scores in a Medical Anatomy Course

Yun Hak Kim; Changwan Hong; Sae-Ock Oh; Sik Yoon; Min Jeong Kim; Sungil Ju; So Jung Yune; Sunyong Baek

doi:10.11637/kjpa.2018.31.3.83

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Kim, Hong, Oh, Yoon, Kim, Ju, Yune, and Baek: The Impact of Alternating Dissection in Conjunction with Reciprocal Peer Teaching on Practical Exam Scores in a Medical Anatomy Course

Original Article

Korean J Phys Anthropol 2018;31(3):83-89.

Published online: 20 March 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.11637/kjpa.2018.31.3.83

The Impact of Alternating Dissection in Conjunction with Reciprocal Peer Teaching on Practical Exam Scores in a Medical Anatomy Course

Yun Hak Kim¹, Changwan Hong¹, Sae-Ock Oh¹, Sik Yoon¹, Min Jeong Kim¹, Sungil Ju¹, So Jung Yune², Sunyong Baek^1,^2,

¹Department of Anatomy, Pusan National University School of Medicine

²Department of Medical Education, Pusan National University School of Medicine

Correspondence to: Sunyong Baek (Department of Anatomy, Pusan National University School of Medicine) E-mail: sybaek@pusan.ac.kr

Received 7 September 2018 Revised 17 September 2018 Accepted 17 September 2018

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

The reformation of medical curriculum induced the reduction of anatomy course schedule especially in contact hours in anatomy laboratory. It has led to the use of more efficient teaching approaches in anatomy laboratory. The purpose of this work provide a detailed analysis of alternating dissections with reciprocal peer teaching in anatomy laboratory. Students were assigned alphabetically, in teams of eight or nine, to each dissecting table. The team was subdivided into two groups, A and B, each group dissected every other session. Students excused from dissection spent their time with team-based learning and self-directed learning. Dissected peer-teaching groups presented structures from the dissection to groups absent during dissection. Practical exam scores of the alternating dissection indicated no significant difference with those of classical dissection of previous year. Subgroup analysis of practical exam scores in alternating dissection was also no significant difference between group A and B. Assessment of question types showed that correction rates of questions in the dissected region was significantly higher on dissection group assignment. There were 9 questions (out of 86) in which there was a significant difference in correction rates between A and B groups. In conclusion, the laboratory paradigm of alternating dissection with reciprocal peer teaching demonstrated an effective method of learning gross anatomy laboratory for first year medical students.

Keywords: Alternating dissection, Reciprocal peer teaching, Practical exam scores

References

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Table 1.

A comparison of practical exam score percentages dis-played as median, range, mean, and standard deviations between 2017 and 2018

	Mdn	Ran Minimum	nge Maximum	Mean	SD	Statistical findings
2017	63.3	25.9	89.9	61.4	12.2	t= – .243, p = .808
2018	64.0	19.8	89.5	61.8	14.5

Mdn: median

Table 2.

Practical exam score percentages of alternating subgroups displayed as median, range, mean, and standard deviations

ALT subgroups		Mdn	Ra Minimum	ange Maximum	Mean	SD	Statistical findings
A		64.0	19.8	89.5	61.2	14.9	t = – .512, p = .610
B		65.1	27.9	89.5	62.5	14.1	A vs. B
Practical exam question types
	α	66.7	11.1	88.9	62.9	17.0	∗ t = 2.131, ∗ p = .035
A	β	58.8	2.9	91.2	53.5	16.6	α – A vs. B
	α&β	70.6	26.5	94.1	67.9	16.7	∗ t = – 2.449, ∗ p = .016
	α	61.1	5.6	83.3	56.7	16.4	β – A vs. B
B	β	61.8	20.6	94.1	60.6	16.7	t = .201, p = .841
	α&β	70.6	26.5	94.1	67.4	14.1	α & β – A vs. B

Note. Scores (as percentages) on practical exam question types, according to each alternating dissection (ALT) subgroup, are presented below subgroup data. Significant findings (p<.05) are indicated by asterisks. 86-item laboratory practical exams was classified as types α, β, α&β. In the case of group A, the structures that derived from actual dissection were type α, those from peer-teaching were type β, those either dissected by both groups or identified twice during dissection of different regions were type α&β. Type α was 28 questions, β was 34 questions and α&β was 24 questions. Question type Aα referred to the practical exam items that Group A alone, was responsible for dissecting. Likewise, Bβ type questions were dissected by Group B alone.

Table 3.

Analysis of statistically significant differences in test performance in alternating dissection pairs

% Students correct
	Correct answer	A	B	p	% Total students correct
Exam I	Teres minor muscle	72	95 ^a	<.0001	84
	Superficial palmar arch	43 ^a	69 ^a	.0002	56
	Rectus capitis posterior major muscle	54 ^a	34	.0044	44
Exam II	Parotid duct	62	^a 78^a	.0136	70
	Infraorbital nerve	55	72 ^a	.0125	64
	Trigeminal nerve (skull base)	75 ^a	49	.0002	62
	Vertebral artery	71 ^a	52	.0058	62
	Frontal nerve	60 ^a	40	.0047	50
	Frontonasal duct	31	52 ^a	.0026	42

^a Indicates the group that dissected in alternating dissection. The other group had the material presented by the dissecting group.

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