Relationship between learning approach, Bloom’s taxonomy, and student performance in an undergraduate Human Anatomy course

Researchers have long been interested in understanding how different learning approaches impact learning outcomes. Learning approaches are often conceptualized as a dichotomy of superficial and deep, and learning outcomes are typically viewed on a cognitive scale that ranges from lower- to higher-order. While there appears to be an inherent relationship between learning approach and outcomes where superficial approaches lead to lower-order learning and deep approaches result in higher-order learning, this concept is not well documented. The purpose of this study is to better understand this relationship by evaluating whether student performance on higher- and lower-order examination questions is influenced by the approach a student takes when studying. To investigate this, survey and examination data were collected from an upper-level undergraduate Human Anatomy course at the University of Cincinnati. Results indicate that, on average, students in the course favored a deep approach to learning. The impact that learning approach had on examination performance was investigated using a series of analytical approaches, which revealed that students who took a deep approach to learning performed marginally better on both higher- and lower-order examination questions in lecture and practical examination settings. These results are contextualized within the literature, which highlights the need for more research surrounding the interrelatedness and dependency of categories within both learning approaches and cognitive levels.