The Perceived Benefit of a 3D Anatomy Application (App) in Anatomy Occupational Therapy Courses

Abstract

Conventional teaching methods, such as 2-dimensional PowerPoint presentations, are among the most common anatomy teaching tools. However, these methods do not allow depth perception of anatomical structures. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to report the incorporation and student’s perception of a 3D anatomy app to an Occupational Therapy class as an enhanced anatomical learning technique. For methods, the Complete 3D Anatomy app was used to teach the upper extremity structures. The students used the Likert scale to answer a survey regarding the different anatomical teaching tools that were integrated into the course. The results indicated that 85% of the students reported the anatomy app was very helpful (85%-39/46), helpful (9%-4/46) or good (2%-1/46) in aiding their comprehension of complex anatomical structures. Similarly, 100% of the students considered the anatomy app to be beneficial. Therefore, we conclude that using the 3D anatomy app was a tool for the comprehensive learning of human anatomy. The selection of the 3D app demonstrates this by graduate students as the second-best teaching tool to learn anatomy. For future courses, we will incorporate and explore the benefits of a personal tablet/iPad with 3D apps for each student, along with a virtual dissection table for the human cadaver laboratory.

Keywords

• Anatomy application
• Occupational Therapy
• Anatomy teaching
• Technology
• App

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