120 - Investigating the Impact of Resource Utilization on Exam Performance in an Introductory Anatomy Course

Poster Board Number: 120
There are separate poster presentation times for odd and even posters.
Odd poster #s – first hour
Even poster #s – second hour

Co-authors:

Dana Abulez - University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; John Norys - University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; John Lee - University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; Humam Shahare - University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; Evan Hicks - University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; Tiffiny Huitt - University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; Erica Malone - University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; David Davies - University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

Abstract Body : Starting medical school can be stressful, especially when compounded by the dozens of resources available to students. Clinical anatomy is an introductory medical school course, and we wished to investigate trends between resource use and exam grades to help students as they develop their study habits. This project was inspired by a project presented at last year's AAA conference from our institution. We expanded this study to include three exams taken throughout the course, all students, and additional resources to further understand which academic and lifestyle factors contributed to students’ performance on anatomy exams.


We surveyed first-year medical students about resource use (20 resources including UAMS and outside academic institution resources, and ChatGPT) and other mitigating factors such as sleep, exercise, and stress after all three exams. Grades from these exams were collected and analyzed; the average grade of responders was 3.5% higher than that of non-responders. Multiple linear regression was used to model the relationship between students’ exam scores and academic and lifestyle factors during the course. Analysis of variance of the model provided further insight into the impact of each factor on students’ exam scores with α=0.05.


We analyzed 238 responses and found factors associated with significant differences in exam performance were time spent studying, stress levels, and taking a prior anatomy course. Students with “high” stress levels scored 3.49% lower than those with “moderate” stress levels (p-value< 0.05). Additionally, students who studied 1-4 hours per day had a 4.76% lower exam score than those who studied 4-7 hours per day (p-value < 0.001). Students who took a prior anatomy course scored 2.6% higher than those who had not (p-value< 0.05). Other factors including use of any resource, sleep, exercise, and relaxation time had no significant impact on exam performance. >


High stress can negatively affect performance; however, students struggling in the class may have reported higher stress levels secondarily. The results seen with students who studied 1-4 hours per day and who took a prior anatomy course are concordant with results from last year's survey and are likely due to the immense amount of coursework. Perhaps most surprisingly, no individual resource had an impact on performance, indicating that it may not matter which resource students choose as long as they feel it is helping them learn the material.


As students develop their study habits in anatomy, they should consider choosing resources that work well for their learning style along with time management and stress reduction techniques. Further research is needed on this topic, especially with the growing use of AI and digital resources in medical education.