Royse Emily A, Pullen Nicholas A, Cogswell Andi, Holt Emily A
School of Biological Sciences, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, Colorado, USA.
Natural and Physical Sciences Department, Aims Community College, Greeley, Colorado, USA.
J Microbiol Biol Educ. 2024 Aug 29;25(2):e0001124. doi: 10.1128/jmbe.00011-24. Epub 2024 Jul 26.
Studies document difficulties undergraduate pre-nursing and allied health students face when learning human anatomy and physiology (A&P) course content. A comprehensive synthesis exploring the teaching practices within the course and how those practices are evaluated is warranted. This scoping literature review identified 78 journal articles investigating teaching practices, and we charted their research methods, student outcomes, and institutional contexts. Content analysis found the teaching practices described most frequently in A&P education research literature involved multiple aligned changes across the curriculum, including student activities, course delivery, and assessments. Critical appraisal of study methodologies revealed that most studies in undergraduate A&P were longitudinal, included comparison groups, and used simple inferential statistics. In contrast, few studies listed limitations of their research, collected data from multiple institutions, or reported student demographic data. We believe these factors pose notable limitations to the interpretation of A&P education studies across institutional contexts. The results of this review identify future lines of inquiry to enrich existing evidence about pedagogical interventions in A&P courses.
研究记录了本科护理预科生和相关健康专业学生在学习人体解剖学和生理学（A&P）课程内容时所面临的困难。有必要进行一次全面的综合研究，探讨该课程中的教学实践以及这些实践是如何被评估的。这项范围界定文献综述确定了78篇研究教学实践的期刊文章，我们梳理了它们的研究方法、学生成果和机构背景。内容分析发现，A&P教育研究文献中最常描述的教学实践涉及整个课程的多个协同变化，包括学生活动、课程授课方式和评估。对研究方法的批判性评价显示，本科A&P课程的大多数研究都是纵向研究，设有对照组，并使用简单的推断统计方法。相比之下，很少有研究列出其研究的局限性，从多个机构收集数据，或报告学生人口统计学数据。我们认为，这些因素对跨机构背景下A&P教育研究的解读构成了显著限制。本综述的结果确定了未来的研究方向，以丰富关于A&P课程教学干预的现有证据。
