Anatomical MythBusters: An approach to addressing misconceptions in foundational sciences education

Abstract

Misconceptions are persistent ideas that are not supported by current scientific views and are considered distinct from a lack of knowledge, in that misconceptions exist despite teaching on a topic.¹ Misconceptions are known to be common in anatomy learning and may stem from a variety of factors including the nature of the discipline (e.g. depth of detail and complex nomenclature), surface learning approaches (e.g. memorisation of isolated anatomical facts) and how anatomy is typically taught (e.g. divided into systems and regions).¹ Anatomy is foundational to clinical practice, so allowing anatomical misconceptions to go unchallenged may impact students' learning in disciplines reliant on anatomical knowledge application (e.g. clinical examination and procedural skills) and ultimately introduce risks to patient wellbeing. Although prior research has explored why misconceptions may arise when learning anatomy,¹ a gap remains in how to practically and effectively address students' misconceptions.

Drawing inspiration from the acclaimed science education television programme ‘MythBusters’ which assesses the validity of urban legends using scientific methods, we developed a series of short videos (range 3–10 minutes) which address or ‘bust’ anatomical misconceptions in an engaging format. The choice of the term ‘myths’ was purposeful, as ‘myth’ evokes the idea that a particular belief is widely held and explains a phenomenon and thus avoids blaming students for their misconceptions.

Effectively addressing misconceptions hinges (1) deconstructing the causation of misconceptions before reconstructing students' understanding of core anatomical concepts, (2) timely provision of feedback resources, and (3) engaging students through a preferred medium (i.e. short videos), particularly as this material is ‘add on’. To achieve timeliness, we focused on being good rather than perfect, and limited recording to single takes. By having an explicit focus on the root cause of misconceptions oversimple remediation, we also enhanced our pedagogical content knowledge, and refined learning for subsequent iterations of the course.

Georgina C. Stephens: Conceptualization; writing – original draft; writing – review and editing; project administration; resources; investigation. Michelle D. Lazarus: Conceptualization; writing – review and editing; project administration; resources; investigation.

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.