133 - The Impact of Diverse Student Cohorting on Anatomy Practical Exam Performance at a Large Urban Medical School

Poster Board Number: 133
There are separate poster presentation times for odd and even posters.
Odd poster #s – first hour
Even poster #s – second hour

Abstract Body : Introduction & Objective:
Literature on student learning communities (LCs) has shown them to be advantageous to student learning. In the last decade, several medical schools have implemented forms of structured cohorting, like LCs, amongst their students. The long-term impact of LCs and student cohorting on anatomy medical education has not been evaluated. In this study, we sought to analyze the impact of various types of cohorting on medical student anatomy learning at a single large urban institution.
Materials & Methods:
Sidney Kimmel Medical College (SKMC) at Thomas Jefferson University is located in Center City, Philadelphia, PA. Typical class sizes are between 270-280 students. Since the 2017 launch of JeffMD, an integrated case-based curriculum, students have been longitudinally grouped for gross dissection, during the entire 18 month-long preclinical phase. Upon matriculation, students are assigned to a dissection group (4-5 students/group), a dissection table team (2 groups/team), and a dissection room (32-38 students/room) with 1-2 faculty/room who rotate each systems block. Additionally, in the fall of 2021, SKMC created faculty-facilitated learning societies (~70 students/ society).
We chose to compare the following:
• Cohort 1: a class of JeffMD students; who went through the preclinical phase prior to the implementation of learning societies
• Cohort 2: a class of JeffMD students; who were placed in a learning society at the start of the medical curriculum
This allows us to compare how our normal cohorting schemes affects anatomy assessments and whether the addition of learning societies further impacted longitudinal outcomes. We then applied the current learning society cohorting algorithm on Cohort 1 to validate that real interaction was affecting any change.
Results:
Students who were part of structured learning societies (Cohort 2) performed statistically significantly better on the majority of anatomy practical exams than students who were not part of learning societies (Cohort 1).
There was also significantly less variance in exam performance amongst Cohort 2 than amongst Cohort 1. The impact of learning societies was particularly strong in exams taken early in their preclinical phase.
Conclusion:
The data suggest faculty-facilitated student learning societies are advantageous to student learning, specifically with respect to anatomy content.
Of note, the decreased variance in exam performance in Cohort 2 compared to Cohort 1 signifies there is more consistency in anatomy exam performance. The early implementation of learning societies a may have yielded a sense of comradery amongst the Cohort 2 students which aided studying and eased testing anxiety in anatomy practical exams, especially at the start of medical school.
Our statistically significant findings are supported by the existing literature on the effectiveness of student learning societies in other academic disciplines.
Significance/ Implication:
Our data supports the notion of added value in fostering a strong sense of community at the beginning of a medical curriculum. We encourage more medical schools to implement learning societies to improve student understanding and proficiency of foundational anatomical concepts. In further studies, we plan to evaluate the impact of learning societies on other assessments in our institution and how long such impact lasts.
Funding Sources:
The authors have no disclosed conflicts of interests.