Benefits of a bilingual web-based anatomy atlas for nursing students in learning anatomy

Abstract

Background: Registered nurses are required for high-quality healthcare. Thus, the anatomy course is essential regarding professional knowledge of the human body during the nursing training process. However, previous studies have indicated that anatomy teaching time and anatomy teachers were reduced and insufficient. Therefore, to improve the learning of practical anatomy in response to these difficulties, a bilingual National Taiwan University web-based anatomy atlas (NTU-WAA) was created as a cross-platform application and its feasibility was evaluated.

Methods: The comparison of anatomy examination scores between nursing students of two cohorts (66 from the 2018-2019 cohort, whom was without NTU-WAA application; 54 from the 2019-2020 cohort, to whom NTU-WAA was offered) and the evaluation of questionnaires collected from nursing students of the 2019-2020 cohort and 4 anatomy teachers were carried out to define the feasibility of this strategy.

Results: Results obtained by nursing students for the 2019-2020 cohort showed a significant increase in anatomy learning performance compared with that of the 2018-2019 cohort with reference to the laboratory midterm [2018-2019 cohort vs. 2019-2020 cohort, mean (standard deviation, SD): 77.20 (16.14) vs. 81.80 (12.03); p = 0.043], the laboratory final examination [59.68 (15.28) vs. 80.35 (13.74); p < 0.001] and the theory final examination [80.85 (10.10) vs. 84.33 (6.925); p = 0.017]. Moreover, results of the questionnaires indicated that the new bilingual cross-platform atlas was highly accepted by students and teachers.

Conclusions: The NTU-WAA, a bilingual web-based atlas, was evaluated as a beneficial anatomy-learning tool that may enhance self-study of nursing students with consequent amelioration of their anatomy-related performance in both theoretical and laboratory examinations. This reflection suggests the future implementation of the bilingual web-based atlas on a large scale.

Keywords: Anatomy; Bilingual; Nursing students; Self-study; Web-based learning.

Fig. 1

Schedule of NTU anatomy course for nursing students in the 2018–2019 cohort and the 2019–2020 cohort. There were 18 weeks in the first semester in 2018–2019 (A) and 2019–2020 (B) academic year of NTU, including 13-week lecture sessions, 2-week laboratory sessions, and 2-week examination time. The first part of NTU-WAA contained only skeletal and muscular systems and was released to students in the 5th week. By the 13th week, all nine chapters of NTU-WAA were completed and released to students

Fig. 2

The main menu of bilingual NTU-WAA. The cross-platform software was designed with a cross-platform platform and could automatically shift between computers (A) and mobile devices (B), which was one of the characteristics of NTU-WAA. The second characteristic was that the anatomical terminology in the NTU-WAA was shown in English and traditional Chinese (C)

Fig. 3

Evaluation of anatomical examination difficulty between the 2018–2019 and 2019–2020 cohorts. The difficulty of theory and laboratory examination of anatomy course between the 2018–2019 and 2019–2020 academic years was evaluated by four testers who were teaching assistants of anatomy course but blind to examination questions. Each score of testers’ midterms (mid) and final examinations (final) of two academic years was shown as a scatter plot. Pearson’s correlation coefficient (r) was used to measure the correlation of examination difficulty between the two academic years. Significant correlation was demonstrated if p < 0.05. The results of theory (A) and laboratory (B) examinations both showed strong correlation between the 2018–2019 and 2019–2020 cohorts.

Fig. 4

Comparison of the academic performance in anatomy course of nursing students of the 2018–2019 and 2019–2020 cohorts. The examination scores of nursing students in theory midterm (A), laboratory midterm (B), theory final examination (C) and laboratory final examination (D) were separately compared between 2018-2019 and 2019–2020 cohorts and were demonstrated by means (SD) of dot plots. The academic performance of nursing students of the 2019–2020 cohort were significantly increased in the laboratory midterm, the theory final examination and the laboratory final examination, whereas there was no difference in the theory midterm scores between the two cohorts. *, p < 0.05