A Global Perspective of Muscular System Coverage in Undergraduate Human Anatomy and Anatomy & Physiology Courses: General Instructional Trends in Muscular System Coverage

Abstract

There is a widely variable breadth of coverage of anatomical content across undergraduate human anatomy courses. A previous study by Saladin (2008) assessed muscle coverage in undergraduate anatomy courses, but the sample size was about 20 individuals who self‐reported their data in response to a listserv question. Thus, a larger, more representative sample was required to be able to assess more accurately the variation among these courses. In response to the need for a more global understanding of the content taught in undergraduate anatomy courses, we prepared a muscular system survey where human Anatomy (or Anatomy & Physiology) faculty could report the extent to which they discuss skeletal muscles in these classes. The survey also collected demographic institutional data such as the type of institution (community college versus 4‐year), course format, and geographic location of the undergraduate institution, so comparisons could be made. The muscular system coverage survey was created and administered to participants online via Qualtrics. Muscles that were surveyed were those listed and described in a typical undergraduate human anatomy text (Human Anatomy, 5th edition textbook by McKinley, O'Loughlin, and Pennefather‐O'Brien (2017)). Participants were recruited via a poster presentation at HAPS 2018 and recruitment emails sent out through AAA, HAPS and AACA listservs. The survey has been examined and the study deemed exempt by Indiana University IRB ‐ Protocol # 1805378498. All data was de‐identified prior to analysis. The data indicated some interesting instructional trends regarding muscular system coverage. First, the identification of specific muscles and their actions are taught at a higher frequency than the teaching of either attachments or innervation. Innervation of specific muscles is the least taught concept across all assessed regions. In each muscular region, certain muscles were taught with higher frequency than others and that is demarcated on the graphs of the poster. This research shows there is a global trend in teaching identification of specific muscles within each region of the human body and often this is accompanied by teaching actions of said muscles. These general instructional trends may increase our understanding of the anatomical education undergraduate students are receiving and will lead to further critical conversations about content development and curriculum.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.