Students’ Perceptions and Attitudes After Exposure to Three Different Instructional Strategies in Applied Anatomy

BACKGROUND: The advancements of technologies have developed anatomical education into a new era. The study aims to assess medical students’ performance and overall satisfaction who used the anatomage table and plastinated specimens for the teaching and learning anatomy courses. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted on students of the first-year college of medicine at Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University (IMSIU). Students were randomly distributed equally into three groups A, B, and C. All groups were taken two sessions of lectures for one hour each. Each lecture was followed by a practical session of two hours. Group A learned with the “Anatomage” table and Group B learned the same topics on plastinated specimens. Group C was learning on both plastinated specimens and the “Anatomage” table. The objective structured practical examination was given to all students immediately after the practical sessions. A structured questionnaire was given to each group to determine the students’ views on the educational methods. RESULTS: There was a statistically significant difference between the means of the total scale scores for the three teaching methods, where students expressed a higher attitude towards both strategies for teaching in comparison to the anatomage table and plastinated models for teaching, where the means were 18±4.4, 18.3±4.6, 20.4±5.6, respectively, F=12.6 and P=0.0001. There were higher and positive students’ attitudes regarding the five statements in favor of both models teaching compared to anatomage table and plastinated model teaching alone. CONCLUSION: The first-year medical students have valued the combination of anatomage table and plastinated prosections in learning and assessing anatomy education at the undergraduate level. The advantages outweigh the limitation of these educational tools.