Eur J Anat, 11 (S1): 53-57 (2007)

Role of the organization of subjects and the educational resources used in their teaching in the Anatomy education-learning process

Rodriguez-Serrano F., Marchal J.A., Prados J., Melguizo C., Hita F., Peran M., Martinez-Amat A., Velez C., Boulaiz H., Caba O., Carrillo E., Ortiz R., Rama A.R., Alvarez L., Aranega A.

Department of Health Sciences, University of Jaén, Spain; Department of Human Anatomy and Embryology, University of Granada, Spain; Department of Neuroscience and Health Sciences, University of Almería, Spain; Dpto. Anatomía Y Embriología Humana, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Granada, Avda. Madrid s/n, 18012 Granada, Spain

ABSTRACT Within the three-year nursing degree course in Spain, the way in which anatomy teaching is organised shows distinct differences between different universities. At the University of Jaén, first-year students have human anatomy (HA) as a separate subject, whereas at the University of Almeria, anatomy is included within a larger module called the structure and function of the human body (SFHB). The aim of this study was to analyze the reaction of students to the organization of their anatomy courses, the resources used in their teaching, their contents, and the tutoring and evaluation system. For this purpose, a 35-item questionnaire was designed to address aspects related to these objectives and administered at the end of the 2005-6 academic year to 82 students of taking human anatomy at the University of Jaén and 52 students taking structure and function of human body at the University of Almeria. Results obtained showed differences in the evaluation of the educational organization of these subjects at the two universities. The approval rating of Jaen students for the relationship between their theoretical and practical education/training was 25% lower than that of Almeria students. This difference appears to be related to the different distributions of credits between the two subjects in the courses surveyed. Students appeared more highly to value the resources that were most frequently used during the course, suggesting that students may value most highly those resources employed most frequently within a course. There were some similarities between the students at the different universities in the importance they assigned to the different thematic units of the respective subjects. Finally, both groups revealed a preference for face-to-face tutorial sessions and for evaluation by written examinations.

Keywords: anatomy, conference paper, curriculum, education program, human, learning, medical education, medical student, resource allocation, Spain, teaching