Who is repeating anatomy? Trends in an undergraduate anatomy course

Anatomy courses frequently serve as prerequisites or requirements for health sciences programs. Due to the challenging nature of anatomy, each semester there are students remediating the course (enrolled in the course for a second time), attempting to earn a grade competitive for admissions into a program of study. In this retrospective study, remediation rates and trends in an undergraduate anatomy course with over 400 students enrolled each semester at a large Midwestern university were identified. Demographic data was collected from spring 2004 to spring 2010, including students' age, ethnicity, major of study, class standing, college admission tests (ACT and SAT®) scores, anatomy laboratory and lecture examination scores, and final anatomy grades for each semester. Eleven percent of the students repeated the course at least once. Gender, ethnicity, major of study and SAT scores were all shown to be associated with whether or not a student would need to repeat the course. On average, students who repeated anatomy demonstrated significant improvements in lecture and laboratory scores when comparing first and second enrollments in anatomy, and therefore also saw improved final course grades in their second enrollment. These findings will aid future instructors to identify and assist at-risk students to succeed in anatomy. Instructors from other institutions may also find the results to be useful for identifying students at risk for struggling.