Discovering the “anatomy” in students’ mind through metaphors

• DOI: 10.1007/s00276-011-0790-1
• Publication Date: 2011-02-21T06:59:33Z
• Authors: Mustafa Aktekin; Nafiye Çiğdem Akt...
• Keywords: Male; Students, Medical; Turkey; 4. Education; 05 social sciences; 06 humanities and the arts; Cohort Studies; Young Adult; Surveys and Questionnaires; 0602 languages and literature; Metaphor; Humans; Learning; Female; 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences; Educational Measurement; Anatomy; Education, Medical, Undergraduate

This study aims to obtain clues about the beliefs of medical students on learning anatomy through metaphor analysis which has not been used in this field before.A questionnaire was given to 174 medical students. Students were asked to complete the statement with a metaphor and to provide an explanation for it. All metaphors were grouped under 8 categories.The most frequently produced metaphors were collected in two categories, namely "being lost/unknown situation" and "hopeless struggle." These were the positions in which students feel themselves desperate, confused and lost (25%) or they consider their efforts to learn anatomy as an activity that is waste of time, ineffectual, and hopeless (24%). Only three out of eight categories (26%) had positive connotation.Metaphors acquired here reflect distress in anatomy learning. These results would direct the educators to revise educational methods and instruments to provide more efficient anatomy education.