Does variability in the timetabling of anatomy teaching affect academic performance of medical students? Poster presented at Joint Meeting of the Anatomical Society & the British Association of Clinical Anatomists Summer Scientific Meeting 2016, Brighton, United Kingdom

First and second year students studying medicine at the University of Bristol (UoB) have one 2.5-hour anatomy practical session per week. The Human Dissection Room only accommodates a third of the year and therefore sessions must be scheduled at different times in the week. Similarly the anatomy spot examination needs to run in three sequential circuits to accommodate all the students. The primary aim was to determine if the timing of the anatomy practical session attended influenced performance in the end of term formative anatomy spot examination. "Timing" specifically refers to time of day (am vs pm) and day of the week. Secondarily, to determine if the exam circuit students were allocated to affected their academic performance. Ethical approval was granted by UoB ethics committee. The formative marks were compared for each variable stated. All data used was protected and securely stored. The results show students perform significantly better in the spot exam if their weekly practical is timetabled in the afternoon (independent t-test: P = 0.04 year1, P < 0.01 year2). However, no statistically significant difference in exam performance was found comparing the day of the week (one-way ANOVA, P > 0.05) or examination circuit allocation (one-way ANOVA, P > 0.05). The results reassure that the order in which students sit the spot exam is unlikely to affect academic performance. The better academic performance in the afternoon cohorts is in line with adolescent learning theory and the wider implications of this for university timetabling may need to be considered.