Student Perceived Difficulties in Learning Organ Systems in an Undergraduate Human Anatomy Course

Undergraduate human anatomy courses are often taught with a systems approach by teaching one system at a time, often starting with the skeletal system, then the muscular system, then the nervous system, and so on. When learning about systems sequentially, students will likely perceive certain systems to be more or less difficult than others for various reasons which may contribute to their actual learning of each system. Having an understanding of why students find certain organ systems to be more or less challenging can inform instruction in order to help students learn about organ systems more effectively. The objectives of this study were to determine how students perceived each organ system in terms of difficulty and to determine why students thought certain organ systems were more or less challenging. Student survey data were analyzed from two sections of a large enrollment (~125 students) undergraduate human anatomy course at a large research university in the western United States. A pre‐post survey was used to assess changes in student confidence regarding their knowledge of organ systems and qualitative methods based on grounded theory were used to analyze student written data from a post‐survey that asked students to explain why they thought certain organ systems were difficult to learn. Results showed that while students reported significantly increased confidence in all organ systems by the end of the course, the gains were lowest for the central and peripheral nervous systems. At the end of the course, students perceived the central and peripheral nervous systems to be most difficult organ systems to learn (reported by students in written comments to be largely due to the complexity of the structure‐function relationships within these systems). Students also perceived the cardiovascular system to be least difficult to learn (because of their familiarity with the system from prior courses). These results suggest that undergraduate human anatomy students perceive organ systems as more or less challenging for a variety of reasons ranging from properties inherent to each system (e.g. complexity of systems and structure‐function relationships, quantity of structures, etc) to logistical factors regarding each system (e.g. exposure through pre‐requisites, time spent on a system, etc). These findings have practical implications in that anatomy instructors may choose to alter their course curriculum or design pedagogical activities that specifically address the reasons why students perceive organ systems as more or less challenging in order to improve student learning. Support or Funding Information N/A