Reverse engineering anatomy and physiology education for biomedical engineering students

Teaching anatomy and physiology (A&P) to undergraduate biomedical engineering (BME) students presents unique challenges, as A&P curricula are traditionally designed for healthcare professions rather than engineering learners. This dissertation investigates BME students’ experiences in A&P courses and evaluates engineering-specific instructional, assessment, and learning strategies. A learning experience design framework was used to redesign an undergraduate A&P course, developed a BME student persona using a mixed-methods approach by combining thematic analysis and Q-methodology. This demonstrated that BME students perceived A&P as a content-heavy course with unclear expectations and minimal practice problems prototypical to traditional engineering courses. These results suggest that students lack effective discipline-specific approaches for A&P competency. We first evaluated the use of student-generated crib sheets as a learning tool, which showed that students who refined their sheets across multiple study sessions were 13-times more likely to improve examination performance than students who did not demonstrate iterative development. Additional modeling indicated that evidence of iteration - indicated through usable negative space - positively predicted examination success, whereas image use demonstrated mixed effects depending on what content area was assessed. A multifaceted intervention was implemented in a third-year BME A&P course. Gross anatomy laboratories were redesigned using guided-inquiry worksheets, requiring students to translate anatomical specimens into schematics as a form of “anatomical free-body-diagram”. Assessments were concurrently redesigned using objective structured practical examination (OSPE)-style questions to align with laboratory activities and evaluate visuospatial understanding. Outcomes were evaluated using Q-methodology and mixed linear modeling, demonstrating substantial improvements in student perceptions, motivation, and confidence in studying A&P, as well as a dose-dependent relationship between laboratory effort and examination outcomes. This work demonstrates that disciplinary misalignment in A&P education for BME students can be addressed through intentional integration of engineering-aligned learning strategies, scaffolded assessment design, and discipline-specific knowledge representation. We improved learning outcomes and student perceptions by aligning instructional methods with students’ epistemic and problem-solving orientations. This research offers a transferable framework for redesigning interdisciplinary curricula, highlighting the importance of aligning assessment and disciplinary identity to support meaningful learning.