Abstract:

The most significant mission of medical schools is to graduate competent physicians that can address the emerging medical needs of the community. To achieve this goal, an effective and vibrant curriculum must be developed to serve as a platform to serve student educational expectations, provide a productive academic environment for faculty and promotes student-faculty interaction. Thus, the curriculum must be a board road map that ensures the success of the students, faculty and the institution and a framework by which knowledge can serve as a pivotal point for lifelong learning. In order to achieve the expected goals, a mechanism must be developed to assess the efficacy and appropriateness of the teaching programs. This can be accomplished through the solicitation of students and graduates’ views of the curriculum, ascertaining that competencies are met for a professional education.

Course evaluation surveys are perhaps the most ubiquitous measures of student satisfaction in higher education and the efficacy of the curricular structure. The vast majority of undergraduate and graduate education programs in the US provide questionnaire towards the completion of an academic course asking students to rate the various aspects of instruction and curricular design. Students assign graded qualitative responses to given statements/questions in the questionnaire using a Likert scale.

The Gross Anatomy Curriculum at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine has undergone extensive revision from a organ system based format to a regions based design in the midst of a general shift in the greater preclinical curriculum towards a systems driven design. This study sought to investigate the extent to which student end of course surveys impacted the curricular changes in anatomy. End of course evaluation data from multiple classes of first year medical students at USF were analyzed in light of the curricular changes put in place in the 2012-2013 academic year. Findings indicated no significant correlation between the major curricular modifications and survey results.

Keywords:

Evaluation, assessment, impact, survey, curriculum, education, structure, design.