Dental Students’ Perceptions of Effective Anatomy Teaching

Anatomy taught courses face a unique challenge in that they are always considered a foundation course for careers in Medical / Dental and Health Sciences related fields. The increase in class size and the decrease in classroom-learning interest among students have made the teaching and learning more challenging. In recent years, many reports have shown that there is a substandard level of anatomy knowledge among medical / dental graduates). Such a deficiency definitely is having an impact on safe medical practice as there has been a steady increase in medico-legal litigation for surgical malpractice. Learner's analysis is an important step in identifying the general level of the learner characteristics. The latter include gender differences, background information and previous anatomy knowledge. This study gives guidance towards generation of teaching objectives and selection of appropriate strategies to achieve these objectives. The results of this study provide useful information in selecting effective anatomy teaching methods and generating educational strategies.