Using a Modified Delphi Method in the Creation of an Anatomy Readiness Assessment

Abstract

Human gross anatomy is a foundational course that is consistently covered in the first year of all major health professional education programs. Even though human gross anatomy is a major foundational course, it is not required by all health professional education programs. Most occupational therapy and physical therapy programs do require gross anatomy as a prerequisite course before admission, but often medical and dental schools do not. This leads to incoming students having a variety of exposure levels to the content of human gross anatomy, with many of the students having no exposure at all. It is easy to assess the amount of anatomy exposure that a student has had just by looking at their transcript, the major difference is the quality of the exposure that they have had.In order to assess the quality of anatomy exposure that students have had in the past we needed to create an assessment that covered the foundational information in anatomy. To create this assessment a survey was conducted asking anatomy course instructors what textbooks they used for the health professional education program that they teach. The four most commonly used textbooks were then selected as the major source of information that incoming health professional students will receive in their gross anatomy course. The introductory chapters of these books were reviewed as they contain foundational anatomy information that will be built upon throughout the rest of the human gross anatomy course. A master list of all the foundational structures, terms, and concepts was created from the first chapter of these textbooks and evaluated using a Modified Delphi method. This master list was sent to experts (health professional human gross anatomy course directors) from multiple institutions for validation. After two rounds of the Modified Delphi method any of these topics with a Content Validity Index above 80% agreement were then considered validated foundational information. This new validated list will then be used to create an Anatomy Readiness Assessment.The Anatomy Readiness Assessment is designed to be given to health professional students prior to starting their gross anatomy course. This will assess their understanding of foundational information for anatomy prior to starting the course and may be used to identify students at risk prior to the first examination.