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Student laboratory presentations as a learning tool in anatomy education
Author(s) -
Chollet Madeleine Blair,
Garofalo Evan,
Teaford Mark,
DeLeon Valerie
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.23.1_supplement.477.4
Subject(s) - memorization , presentation (obstetrics) , test (biology) , medical education , medicine , mathematics education , psychology , surgery , paleontology , biology
Previous studies have shown that students who complete oral presentations in the anatomy laboratory believe they understand the material better and retain it longer; however, we have found no studies that empirically test such outcomes based on exam scores. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of oral lab presentations on exam performance. Specifically, we tested whether students (n = 132) performed better on exam questions on topics covered by their oral presentations than on other topics. Each student completed two graded[vbd1], 12‐minute lab presentations on two different assigned topics (e.g., thorax) during the course. Each student also took three examinations, each covering a third of the course material. Exam questions were characterized by type (memorization, pathway, analytical, other). A paired t‐test revealed that students performed better on topics covered by their presentations than on topics not covered by their presentations ( p < 0.05). Two‐way repeated measures ANOVA (presentation‐by‐question type) also indicated a significant effect of question type on presentation‐related improvement in exam scores. For "pathway" questions, presenting students scored on average 5.6% higher on topics covered by their presentations than on topics not covered by their presentations ( p < 0.05). These results demonstrate empirically that oral presentations are an effective learning tool. Grant Funding Source None