Entry-Level Spatial and General Non-verbal Reasoning: Can These Abilities be Used as a Predictor for Anatomy Performance in Veterinary Medical Students?

Juan Claudio Gutierrez,Steven D Holladay,Rachel Pollard,Boaz Arzi,Sakti Srivastava,Marcelo Gomez,Patricia Youngblood

doi:10.3389/fvets.2018.00226

Abstract

There is currently limited available information, but growing interest, in possible relationships between spatial visualization skills in medical students and their academic performance in select areas of the curriculum such as radiographic interpretation and anatomy. There is very limited comparable information on how entry-level spatial visualization skills may correlate with macroscopic anatomy performance in veterinary medical students exposed to an integrated curriculum. The present study made use of a battery of two short tests that measure spatial ability: Guay's visualization of views test (VVT) and mental rotation test (MRT) and, one test that measures general non-verbal reasoning abilities: Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices Test, short form (APMT). Tests were given to 1st-year veterinary medical students (n = 124) immediately before commencing the integrated veterinary medical curriculum. Results show there is a positive correlation between entry-level spatial ability and non-verbal general reasoning scores confirming these abilities are linked (r: +0.22 and +0.3 for VVT/APMT and MRT/APMT respectively). The dispersion and inconsistency of significant positive correlation between anatomy practical exams grade and spatial and general reasoning scores suggest these abilities either do not correlate with anatomy practical exams grade or, are overcome with progression through the anatomy courses. Males scored higher than females in the spatial ability tests: 16.59 vs. 12.06 for VVT (p = 0.01) and 19.0 vs. 14.68 for MRT (p = 0.01). Scores for APMT did not show a significant difference by gender.

Highlights

Gross anatomy has long been considered a keystone discipline in the medical professions
The curriculum provides all students with a comparative approach integrating normal and abnormal anatomy and physiology centered on body systems rather than disciplines
When performing Spearman’s correlation to understand the relationship between entry-level spatial ability scores (VVT and mental rotation test (MRT)) and APMT entry-level scores, a positive correlation was found between the visualization of views test (VVT) and APMT scores, and between MRT and APMT scores

Summary

Introduction

Gross anatomy has long been considered a keystone discipline in the medical professions. This building block portion of the medical curriculum provides the foundation for later clinical physical examinations, imaging interpretation, surgery, and pathology. A good knowledge of anatomy is required to understand how the structure of an organism relates to its function in health. The combination of cadaver dissection, didactic lectures and supplemental materials such as textbooks and online resources, have been the traditional tools used for teaching anatomy [1]. Regarding spatial ability and anatomic learning, it has been suggested that medical students possess higher spatial ability than other science students, and show greater improvement on spatial ability scores than students in other science disciplines after as little as 1 month of learning anatomy [2]. Studies by Lufler et al supported the idea that early intervention may be useful for students with low spatial ability when entering medical schools [3]

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Discussion

Conclusion