The amount of surgical errors in medicine has steadily increased. One reason for this escalation can be linked back to a decline in anatomical knowledge (12,24). Without anatomical knowledge, vital roles within health and medical fields cannot exist. Lack of anatomical knowledge prevents accurate diagnosis, treatment, and hinders the essential skill in medicine to locate, describe, and relate structures (3,14,22). Utilizing cadaver based labs in undergraduate programs is essential for acquisition of anatomical knowledge. The weight of information the student must learn in a Human Anatomy course is a heavy burden and becomes increasingly cumbersome when the student has not developed the study skills to compensate for the immensity. Often students
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Assessment of anatomical knowledge
The goal in anatomy is to understand the relationship between the structure and how it works in the human body. In order to properly assess the student’s depth of knowledge, the instructor must ask questions that require application of the concept. When planning a test, the appropriate intellectual range must be considered. The goals of instruction and whether an instructor wants to test basic recall or test analytical skills, these aims should be reflected in the exam (9,10).
Three types of questions have been developed to measure a student’s understanding; primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary questions are straightforward and simple. These questions test basic recall of names and terms learned in anatomy. For example, “Identify muscle”. Secondary questions test the student’s knowledge on a basic landmark or structure but further requires the student to expand on that structure. For example, the student must identify a structure but answer “What is the innervation of the tagged muscle?”. Tertiary questions demand the student to identify a structure as well as a feature of that structure but then asks the student to identify another structure that has the same characteristic. For example, the student must recognize the tagged muscle and know its innervation but answer “Name another muscle that shares the innervation of the tagged
Assessment of anatomical knowledge
The goal in anatomy is to understand the relationship between the structure and how it works in the human body. In order to properly assess the student’s depth of knowledge, the instructor must ask questions that require application of the concept. When planning a test, the appropriate intellectual range must be considered. The goals of instruction and whether an instructor wants to test basic recall or test analytical skills, these aims should be reflected in the exam (9,10).
Three types of questions have been developed to measure a student’s understanding; primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary questions are straightforward and simple. These questions test basic recall of names and terms learned in anatomy. For example, “Identify muscle”. Secondary questions test the student’s knowledge on a basic landmark or structure but further requires the student to expand on that structure. For example, the student must identify a structure but answer “What is the innervation of the tagged muscle?”. Tertiary questions demand the student to identify a structure as well as a feature of that structure but then asks the student to identify another structure that has the same characteristic. For example, the student must recognize the tagged muscle and know its innervation but answer “Name another muscle that shares the innervation of the tagged