Incorporation of team-based learning in the cadaveric anatomy laboratory: An overview

Team-based learning is a strategy which has resulted in positive outcomes concerning health professions education. We aimed to shed light on the role of this strategy when it is incorporated in the cadaveric anatomy laboratory.

We explored PubMed, SCOPUS, ERIC and Cochrane databases for articles with purpose to investigate the educational outcomes of the integration of team-based learning in the cadaveric anatomy laboratory.

Six articles were eligible for inclusion. One of them assessed only participants' opinions about the educational intervention and five papers evaluated students' knowledge. Overall, the research showed significant improvement in students' examinations performance and significant superiority to control groups, as well as positive perceptions. There are limited data regarding the factors which may contribute to this success, but it seems that particularly the degree of teacher's involvement and competency needs to be further investigated.

Anatomy educators may consider further adopting team-based learning to facilitate the achievement of the learning objectives of the cadaveric anatomy laboratory and increase the teaching potential of cadavers.