Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on student performance in anatomy and physiology labs

Health science represents the fastest-growing industry in the United States, a trend not predicted to slow for the next decade. The high demand for health professionals is seen with courses in Anatomy and Physiology (A&P), which often have high enrollments, high diversity, and require active pedagogies, hands-on learning, diverse study techniques, and interactions with instructors and peers. In Spring 2020, however, COVID-19 caused major disruptions to everyday life around the world, forcing significant changes to academic curricula and how students were taught. Institutions were forced into all online instruction, thus eliminating hands-on experiences, altering student learning, and hindering student-student and student-instructor interactions. Now that universities are back to in-person classes, there is a great opportunity to evaluate the impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic had on student performance and learning. It is important to investigate the impacts of COVID-19 because it can provide information on how to improve pedagogies going forward, while also helping to prepare for when the next pandemic occurs. To identify and analyze the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on student performance and learning, this study compared student performances in A&P labs before and after COVID-19. For A&P I, practical scores and overall grades declined following the pandemic, not returning to prepandemic levels until Fall 2023 (4-5 semesters). For A&P II, practical scores and overall grades declined in the first semester following the pandemic but returned to prepandemic levels in Spring 2022 (1 semester). While this study focuses on university students and courses in a biological field, the findings can be applied to other academic fields and to students across educational levels.NEW & NOTEWORTHY It is important to investigate the impacts of COVID-19 because it can provide information on how to improve pedagogies going forward, while also helping to prepare for when the next pandemic occurs. Practical scores and overall grades declined following the pandemic for Anatomy and Physiology (A&P) I and II courses but returned to prepandemic levels significantly earlier for students in A&P II. The findings here can be applied to other academic fields and to students across educational levels.