126 - Improved Understanding of Cranial Nerve Anatomy Through Analytical Reasoning

Poster Board Number: 126
There are separate poster presentation times for odd and even posters.
Odd poster #s – first hour
Even poster #s – second hour

Co-authors:

Rylie Wackerly - Clinical Anatomy - Sam Houston State University COM; Jailenne Quiñones-Rodriguez - Sam Houston State University COM; Mario Loomis - Associate professor and Chair, Clinical Anatomy, Sam Houston State University COM

Abstract Body :

Introduction & Objective
It is estimated that 25% of medical errors are due to faulty clinical reasoning. Efforts have been made to offset this deficit by adding clinical reasoning skills to the preclinical curriculum. We developed an anatomy module based on clinical reasoning to improve the teaching of the cranial nerves, leading the students through analytical reasoning, the process of creating one or more novel hypotheses based on foundational information. In addition to contributing to a longitudinal clinical reasoning curriculum, we hypothesized that a guided analytical reasoning module would improve students' understanding of cranial nerve anatomy.

Materials & Methods
Students were randomly assigned to two cohorts within a class of 160, with 40 agreeing to participate in the novel analytical reasoning module and 34 in the control module. Students completed the modules individually online. The novel module was an interactive PowerPoint® with videos and guided analytical reasoning. When a wrong answer was chosen, the student was taken to additional screens of foundational information, proceeding with straightforward analytical reasoning to eventually arrive at the answer. The control module covered the same material, including the clinical correlations, but in a purely didactic format. All the students took timed pre-and post-tests, consisting of high order questions. The average improvement from pre to post-test was compared between the two cohorts, as was the percentage of each group that improved after completing the module.

Results
A comparison of students' average pre- and post-testing results using the novel module demonstrated a significant (p< 0.0001) improvement of 26.4 percentage points compared to 4.7 in a control didactic module. There was no interaction effect in this analysis.

Conclusion
Findings from this study demonstrated the benefits of incorporating analytical reasoning modules in clinical anatomy with a statistically significant improvement in test scores.

Significance
Anatomical understanding is central to sound clinical reasoning. The use of an analytical reasoning module improved our students understanding of cranial nerve anatomy. Students have recounted that frequently, in small group or class discussions, when they are on the verge of understanding, another student calls out the answer, frustrating their chance to learn. The individualized nature of these modules, leading students via small analytical steps to the correct answer, overcomes this shortcoming. Future work will address long-term knowledge retention beyond pre- and post-testing and utilize the technique in other subject areas.

Funding Sources
None.