Improving Veterinary Students' Interest and Engagement During Anatomy Dissection Sessions: Approaches Related to Flow Theory.

A strong foundational understanding of anatomy is central to veterinary education. It is essential for acquiring clinical, surgical, and diagnostic skills in veterinary students. Veterinary anatomy is delivered by didactic lectures and laboratory dissection; however, maintaining student engagement during dissection can be challenging. This article outlines some pedagogical approaches that, if applied in a canine and feline anatomy course, could enhance student engagement and effective learning. Approaches that may be adopted include the provision of pre-matriculation materials on basic anatomical directional terms, structured dissection groupings, instructional videos, and dissection manuals for support. With increasing confidence with dissection proficiency, students are introduced to study aids such as mounted skeletons for demonstrating muscle actions, problem sets simulating clinical cases, and the opportunity for an interactive Q&A at the end of each lab session. The involvement of the second-year veterinary students as anatomy mentors provides peer support. These approaches aim to apply Csikszentmihalyi's flow theory to education, which emphasizes that effective learning can be achieved when students are equipped with requisite skills and resources that are comparable to the given assignment. This design incorporates a regular feedback system and offers the instructor opportunities to provide necessary support to students. The students appreciated the early notice about the course, the nature of the examination, discussions on pathologies, and repetition using different teaching models to present the same concept. This is an observational description of the approaches we have implemented to improve student interest and engagement for effective learning.