171 - Does Timing Matter?: Correlations Among Lab Days/times and Outcomes in an Undergraduate Anatomy Class

Poster Board Number: 171
There are separate poster presentation times for odd and even posters.
Odd poster #s – first hour
Even poster #s – second hour

Co-authors:

Stacey Dunham - Professor, Indiana University; Polly Husmann - Associate Professor, Indiana University

Abstract Body : Purpose:

With hundreds of students taking anatomy every semester at many schools, it can be challenging to ensure each student has equal opportunity in the anatomy lab. As the amount of students taking anatomy during a semester continues to increase, new lab sections are needed to account for the growing number of students. We hypothesized that the later labs will have lower final grade averages than lab sections at earlier times.



Methods:

Retrospective data was mined from the spring semester of 2012 to fall of 2021 of Basic Human Anatomy (ANAT-A215). ANAT-A215 is a five-credit course with three, 50-minute lectures and two, 105-minute labs each week. All students attend a single lecture session. For lab, students enroll in 1 of 11 sections that meet either Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday between the hours of 8 am and 9:45 pm. The majority of students in the class are freshmen and sophomores working on degrees in health sciences. The mined data included what day and time ANAT-A215 students were enrolled in anatomy lab and their overall outcomes in the class. Descriptive and inferential statistics were then run to determine relationships between lab timing and outcomes in the course. A p-value cut-off of 0.05 was chosen to establish statistical significance.



Results:

Our results demonstrate significant relationships between the timing of lab sections and students’ corresponding outcomes in the course. Additional analyses also illustrate how these relationships progress throughout the course.



Conclusion:

This work shows how the timing of anatomy lab sections can correspond with outcomes in the course.



Implications:

This research can help inform instructors and administrators on differences in outcomes related to the timing of lab sections. Additional supports may then be offered to students as needed. If additional lab sections are needed, this research can help make decisions about what times are best to ensure student success.