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The Use of Role-Play in the Learning of Medical Terminology for Online and Face-to-Face Courses

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Title: The Use of Role-Play in the Learning of Medical Terminology for Online and Face-to-Face Courses
Language: English
Authors: Brenda L. M. del Moral (ORCID 0000-0002-4586-9709), Cinnamon L. VanPutte, Barbara A. McCracken
Source: Advances in Physiology Education. 2024 48(3):578-587.
Availability: American Physiological Society. 9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20814-3991. Tel: 301-634-7164; Fax: 301-634-7241; e-mail: webmaster@the-aps.org; Web site: https://www.physiology.org/journal/advances
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 10
Publication Date: 2024
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Postsecondary Education
Descriptors: Online Courses, In Person Learning, Role Playing, Medicine, Vocabulary Development, Allied Health Occupations Education, Health Sciences, Undergraduate Students, Dentistry, Graduate Students, Active Learning, Group Activities, Teamwork, Learning Management Systems, Group Dynamics
Geographic Terms: Illinois
DOI: 10.1152/advan.00273.2023
ISSN: 1043-4046
1522-1229
Abstract: Student engagement while learning a new, unfamiliar vocabulary is challenging in health science courses. A group role-play activity was created to teach students medical terminology and learn why its correct usage is important. This activity brought engagement and relevance to a topic traditionally taught through lecture and rote memorization and led to the development of an undergraduate and a stand-alone introductory course to teach students medical terminology. The undergraduate course was designed to be a fully online medical terminology course for health science students and a face-to-face course for first-year dental students founded in active learning and group work. The course's centerpiece learning activity focused on using published case studies with role-play. In this group activity, students are challenged to interpret a published patient case study as one of the members of a healthcare team. This course models the group work inherent in modern health care to practice building community and practicing professional skills. This approach gives students the capacity to work asynchronously in a team-based approach using our learning management system's wiki tool and requires students to take responsibility for their learning and group dynamics. Students practice identification, writing, analyzing, and speaking medical terms while rotating through the roles. Students in both classes self-reported a 92% to 99% strong or somewhat agreement using a five-point Likert scale that the course pedagogy was valued and helpful in their learning of medical terminology. Overall, this method has proven to be an engaging way for students to learn medical terminology.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2024
Accession Number: EJ1439495
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0179943501;apu01sep.24;2024Oct01.04:31;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0179943501-1">The use of role-play in the learning of medical terminology for online and face-to-face courses </title> <p>Student engagement while learning a new, unfamiliar vocabulary is challenging in health science courses. A group role-play activity was created to teach students medical terminology and learn why its correct usage is important. This activity brought engagement and relevance to a topic traditionally taught through lecture and rote memorization and led to the development of an undergraduate and a stand-alone introductory course to teach students medical terminology. The undergraduate course was designed to be a fully online medical terminology course for health science students and a face-to-face course for first-year dental students founded in active learning and group work. The course's centerpiece learning activity focused on using published case studies with role-play. In this group activity, students are challenged to interpret a published patient case study as one of the members of a healthcare team. This course models the group work inherent in modern health care to practice building community and practicing professional skills. This approach gives students the capacity to work asynchronously in a team-based approach using our learning management system's wiki tool and requires students to take responsibility for their learning and group dynamics. Students practice identification, writing, analyzing, and speaking medical terms while rotating through the roles. Students in both classes self-reported a 92% to 99% strong or somewhat agreement using a five-point Likert scale that the course pedagogy was valued and helpful in their learning of medical terminology. Overall, this method has proven to be an engaging way for students to learn medical terminology. NEW & NOTEWORTHY: Role-play can engage students and encourage learning in identification, pronouncing, writing, and understanding medical terminology in multiple course formats.</p> <p>Keywords: active learning; group-based learning; medical terminology; role-play; team-based learning</p> <hd id="AN0179943501-2">INTRODUCTION</hd> <p>Medical terminology is viewed as an essential but tedious course. It often serves as an introductory component of anatomy and physiology courses, and its correct usage is frequently listed as an objective for professional graduate programs. However, it has traditionally been taught through lectures and rote memorization. Undergraduate and graduate course content in the biomedical sciences is difficult enough without being able to understand the language of the field. Educators recognize that understanding the language underlies student understanding of the material. Passive learning and memorization, the traditional approach to teaching medical terminology, are associated with the lowest retention of knowledge. Additionally, because these approaches often prevent students from applying medical terminology or getting enough verbal and written practice, the teaching of medical terminology was developed as an active learning, role-playing pedagogy to be implemented initially in a fully online course and broadened to a face-to-face course design ([<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref1">1</reflink>]–[<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref2">3</reflink>]).</p> <p>There have been decades of educational studies that have demonstrated that a purely lecture-based approach is less effective for content understanding and retention than one that utilizes active learning ([<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref3">4</reflink>]–[<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref4">6</reflink>]). Here, we describe a medical terminology course whose centerpiece is group role-play. The course uses real, published case studies where students are tasked with interpreting a patient case study as one of four members of a health care "team." The group role-play aspect in this course closely approximates a team-based learning (TBL) approach. TBL allows students to actively build a knowledge base while working in a small group, which fosters student accountability, problem-solving, and critical thinking ([<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref5">7</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref6">8</reflink>]).</p> <p>In addition to the benefits of TBL discussed, active learning, in general, has been demonstrated to promote inclusion while increasing engagement and improving course grades for underrepresented minorities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields ([<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref7">9</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref8">10</reflink>]). As educational institutions more intentionally integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion into their educational quality efforts, missions, and infrastructure, it is imperative that our courses be taught from that perspective. The use of TBL creates an interactive environment in which students have a greater sense of self-sufficiency and an enhanced knowledge of the subject matter. The largest gains in grades and performance experienced in courses utilizing a TBL approach were demonstrated in underrepresented groups ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref9">11</reflink>]–[<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref10">13</reflink>]). The use of a TBL approach fits within the framework of universal design of learning (UDL), which helps prevent the marginalization by traditional teaching methods of students who are more likely to be first-generation college students, be members of an ethnic minority, and/or have a financially disadvantaged familial situation ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref11">14</reflink>]).</p> <p>The traditional lecture-based approach continues to be one of the most common practices, simply because of its familiarity as well as its perceived efficiency with a high student-to-teacher-to-room ratio (hundreds of students:1 teacher:1 room) ([<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref12">15</reflink>]). A 2021 study ([<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref13">16</reflink>]) utilized a survey to collect input from 3,769 STEM instructors to investigate perceived barriers to implementing active learning practices. These authors reported the following barriers including large class sizes, traditional classroom layout with auditorium seating, and fear of negative student evaluations. Although these barriers seem insurmountable to some, we will describe two scenarios utilizing group role-play within healthcare "teams": online instruction and face-to-face instruction that provide solutions to help overcome these barriers.</p> <p>The physical limitations of classroom size and layout are removed when teaching medical terminology online. These advantages are tempered by the perceived need to engage students earlier in the semester to prevent student withdrawal or failure to complete an online course. Role-play and engaging active learning methods are methods by which to capitalize on these benefits while working to prevent negative outcomes. McAlister et al. ([<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref14">17</reflink>]) report the utilization of an active learning intervention for a medical terminology course at a nursing school. When nursing students were surveyed, 85.7% of the students found active learning to be much more beneficial for retention of the content. Moreover, the utilization of case reports in our medical terminology course increased the students' exposure to multiple medical realms and techniques within the same article. A survey of 1,275 papers published in the <emph>Journal of Medical Case Reports</emph> over a 10-yr period (2007–2017) demonstrated that each case report simultaneously included terminology related to human anatomy, physiology, medical laboratory techniques, medical experiments, diagnosis, and treatment ([<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref15">18</reflink>]).</p> <p>Teaching medical terminology has been observed to drive future doctors' development of critical core competencies ([<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref16">19</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref17">20</reflink>]). In addition, the International Federation of Associations of Anatomy, which is responsible for defining anatomical terminologies, strongly endorses the continued usage of Greek and Latin international terms. This endorsement demonstrates the saliency of medical terminology to science and medicine. The development of an active learning-based medical terminology course includes the original design for a fully online, undergraduate medical terminology course for health science students to teach them medical terminology and why its correct usage is important. We also describe a modification of the original design to create a face-to-face course for first-year dental students. Undergraduate and graduate dental students evaluated the effectiveness of using role play and active learning in both online and face-to-face medical terminology courses using an online survey. The group work in the health care teams increased student engagement and helped to build a sense of community among the students.</p> <hd id="AN0179943501-3">METHODS</hd> <hd1 id="AN0179943501-4">Study Participants</hd1> <p>This study was conducted at both author institutions during the Spring 2023 and Fall 2023 semesters. The participants were enrolled first- through fourth-year students in the fully online Medical Terminology course at Edgewood College and first-semester graduate dental students at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. The survey data collected from voluntary participants assessed the use of role-play to learn medical terminology as an online course at the undergraduate level and a face-to-face course at the dental graduate school level. This study received exempt status from the respective Institutional Research Board at Edgewood College and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.</p> <hd1 id="AN0179943501-5">Online Course</hd1> <p>During the first week of a fully online course in medical terminology, undergraduate students were assigned into groups of four students at random. The assigned group of four students did not change during the semester, and upon assignment, students were added to a health care team. Each team was given a homepage for their group within the learning management system (LMS). The homepage displayed the popular American television medical shows for which their group was named (examples: Grey's Anatomy, Scrubs, ER, House, Doogie Howser, M.D., M*A*S*H, St. Elsewhere, Northern Exposure) and showed the students their fellow group members' names and email addresses. Students had minimal ability to personalize their group homepage, and a group description was displayed at the top of the homepage. The group description explained to students that their group represents a healthcare team, and they will be working together for the rest of the course. Each week (except the first week) the students received a published medical case report. Their job as a team member was to interpret that report based on their assigned role for the week (attending physician, intern, medical technician, or nurse), and they had the opportunity to "play" each role several times during the course. Their group was viewable to team members and the instructor only.</p> <p>The group tools that were available to the healthcare team were the discussion board for weekly check-ins, the email tool, and the group wiki. The first week's activity included a "Getting to Know Your Team" activity, in which each student posted their name, gender pronouns, major, a short description of themselves, and a picture. On each team's group homepage, the instructions included an explanation about how to post each team member's work to the weekly wiki and how each role's work should appear. For each week, the team was assigned a themed case report. The themes aligned with the required textbook's chapters and the topics included word anatomy and nuclear medicine, then word analysis and communication, then the whole body, and then each subsequent week a body system. The case reports were typically the first few introductory paragraphs of published case reports from the <emph>Journal of Medical Case Reports</emph> (https://jmedicalcasereports.biomedcentral.com/), and each abbreviated case report was linked to the actual publication.</p> <hd1 id="AN0179943501-6">Weekly Assignments</hd1> <p>Each week, students were responsible for reading the assigned chapter and completing a homework assignment available online through the textbook publisher and linked to the LMS course site. The homework assignment was automatically graded by the textbook publisher and the students received immediate feedback. The individual student was expected to complete their group role by posting their writing on their healthcare team's wiki each week. All weeks of the semester proceeded in this manner excluding the final examination week, in which a final project was assigned to have students demonstrate the skills they learned throughout the semester.</p> <hd1 id="AN0179943501-7">Group Roles</hd1> <p>Healthcare team member's work was posted to each group's wiki in the LMS. Table 1 describes the roles of the attending physician, intern, medical technician, nurse, and pharmacist. In the online course, only the attending physician, intern, medical technician, and nurse roles were assigned to students in groups. The addition of the pharmacist role described in Table 1 was specific to the face-to-face dental school's course.</p> <p>Table 1. Roles of health care team members</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><col align="left" span="1" /><tbody><tr><td align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Attending Physician</italic></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The attending physician has completed all their medical training. They are in a teaching hospital and often responsible for training interns and residents. The attending's job is to read aloud the case presentation and to make sure that the intern understands everything that is important from the case study. This means that the attending must record their oral reading to YouTube (make each recording unlisted) and post the URL to the wiki as an unlisted recording. Only the audio recording is necessary. The attending must also write a list of the medical terms that the intern should make sure they know and include this list in their submission to wiki. The attending is graded on their correct pronunciation of all words, and identification of medical terms that need defining by the intern.</td></tr><tr><td align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Intern</italic></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The intern has just completed medical school and looks to the attending physician for guidance. The intern also wants to prove their knowledge to the attending. The intern should listen to the attending's recording first to learn from the attending through assessment of their oral reading. Then the intern should write a short synopsis evaluating the attending's reading of the case report to learn from them and state whether all the medical terms were pronounced correctly. This synopsis should be posted to the wiki. In addition, the intern must look at the list of medical terms provided by the attending. The intern should critically analyze each word and post its analysis and definition to the wiki. The intern is graded on their ability to assess the attending's recording and break down each medical term into its parts to define the meaning of the word.</td></tr><tr><td align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Medical Technician</italic></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The medical technician describes all laboratory tests and imaging contained in the case report. Their contribution to the wiki should include: a short description of each test or image, the patient's results, whether the results are normal or abnormal, and what makes the results abnormal. The attending expects the medical technician to make an initial interpretation of the test results, stating whether the results are normal or abnormal, as well as how the test results fit with the diagnosis listed in the case report. This should also be posted to the wiki. The medical technician is graded on how well they describe the tests or images to the health care team, identify normal or abnormal test results or images, and succinctly describe how the results fit with the attending's diagnosis.</td></tr><tr><td align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Nurse</italic></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The nurse works and communicates directly with the patient and the patient's family. The nurse's role for this assignment is to write an "interpretation" of the case report into layperson terms for the patient and the family. The AMA and NIH recommend writing for a 6<sup>th</sup> to 7<sup>th</sup> grade reading level. This explanation posted to the wiki should summarize what is wrong with the patient, explain abnormal test results to the patient, explain the diagnosis and prognosis, and any other information the patient will need to understand what is wrong. The nurse is graded on how well they "translate" the case report and explain what has gone wrong in the patient's body to cause their diagnosis.</td></tr><tr><td align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Pharmacist</italic></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The pharmacist is an important part of the healthcare team. In this assignment, the pharmacist is responsible for looking up each prescribed drug's method of action and explaining why that drug is important for the patient's situation (i.e., how does it help the patient?) The pharmacist is graded on the correct description of the mechanism of action and importance of each drug. The pharmacist will include this information in the group presentation and present it to the class.</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>1 AMA, American Medical Association; NIH, National Institutes of Health.</p> <p>Each group's wiki homepage provided the following instructions on which week a student has each role. Their first role will be determined by where their name is on the group members list: <emph>student 1</emph>: attending physician (post due Wednesday); <emph>student 2</emph>: intern (post due Sunday); <emph>student 3</emph>: medical technician (post due Wednesday); and <emph>student 4</emph>: nurse (post due Sunday). For example, <emph>student 2</emph> would first take the role of intern and the next week, the role of medical technician, the next week, the role of nurse, the next week, the role of attending physician, the next week the role of intern, and so on, continuing to rotate through the roles until the end of the course.</p> <p>The students' ability to carry out the weekly role was evaluated based on the criteria in Table 2. The rubric to provide a grade assigned to these criteria was shared between both classes (Table 3). For the online class, the grade from the rubric in Table 3 was divided by 10 such that 10 points was the highest score. The instructor took ∼1.5 h per team to grade all material, including the 3- to 5-min attending physician recordings. The course was capped at 20 students (5 teams). Additional information on how to improve was provided the first time the student played each role and then not included in subsequent assessment feedback.</p> <p>Table 2. Case report grading criteria</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><col align="left" span="1" /><tbody><tr><td align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Attending Physician</italic></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The attending physician should read the <italic>entire report (including prognosis) and include a compiled list</italic> of medical terms for the intern. <list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Speaking pace and clarity of the entire recorded report. Practice and then record only once you have practiced reading out loud many times until you can read the case report fluently.</p></list-item><list-item><p>Correct pronunciation of each word with special emphasis on the pronunciation of medical terms - use the Audio Glossary link from the textbook as main resource or Merriam Webster to correctly pronounce the words.</p></list-item><list-item><p>Read the prognosis at the end of the case report.</p></list-item><list-item><p>List of medical terms. Only include terms that can be analyzed using the elements described in the textbook. Diseases named after a person or location, such as Lyme disease, cannot be broken down and should not be included. In addition, medications should not be included in the list of terms.</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Intern</italic></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The intern must <italic>critique and note any errors</italic> in the attending physician's reading of the case report <italic>and analyze and define</italic> the compiled list of medical terms provided by the attending physician. <list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Critique of the attending's recording. Please use the case report as a reference in your evaluation and make sure that the attending read everything in the report, including the prognosis. You should verify the oral pronunciations using your Audio Glossary from the textbook or Merriam Webster to make sure that your whole healthcare team is learning the correct pronunciation of all medical terms.</p></list-item><list-item><p>Define each of the medical terms. A brief definition of each medical term should be provided.</p></list-item><list-item><p>Analyze the terms. The analysis of each medical term should include the prefix, root word/ combining form, and suffix.</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Medical Technician</italic></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The medical technician should describe each imaging and laboratory test, as well as each evaluation (such as assessments and vital sign collection) and <italic>clearly report</italic> if the result was normal or abnormal and <italic>how this relates</italic> to the prognosis. <list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Identifying all the laboratory tests, imaging procedures and other tests performed on or for the patient to establish a diagnosis. Please remember that <italic>the medical technician's role is to directly explain each test and the patient's results to aid the nurse in generating their report.</italic></p></list-item><list-item><p>Briefly explain each test or procedure.</p></list-item><list-item><p>Evaluation of the test or procedure result with an emphasis on how these results contribute to the patient's diagnosis.</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Nurse</italic></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The nurse's role is to directly address the patient and the family so the post should be written imagining you are talking to them. <list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Clearly greet the patient and family. Remember that <italic>the nurse's role is to directly address the patient and the family so the post should be written as if you are talking to them</italic>.</p></list-item><list-item><p>Thoroughly describe the situation that brought the patient to the clinic or hospital.</p></list-item><list-item><p>The patient's previous history is thoroughly described using simple but clear and accurate terms. The level of language should be appropriate for the general "lay" public.</p></list-item><list-item><p>All the tests, images, and procedures are clearly and accurately described.</p></list-item><list-item><p>The diagnosis and prognosis are clearly explained to the patient and family.</p></list-item><list-item><p>At the end of the post, the family is asked if they have questions or need further explanations.</p></list-item><list-item><p>The entire post is written at a 6th-7th grade reading level as recommended by the AMA and NIH.</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Pharmacist</italic></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The pharmacist's role is to specifically describe the drug's mechanism of action and reason the drug is prescribed to the patient. <list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Identify each drug listed in the case report. If a drug is listed by the proprietary name (name given by the pharmaceutical company), then list its non-proprietary (generic) name.</p></list-item><list-item><p>Explain the specific way that the drug works. This information should include the receptor(s) and whether it is an agonist or antagonist.</p></list-item><list-item><p>State the reason the patient was prescribed this medication. Describe how the patient's pathology is treated by the drug.</p></list-item></list></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>2 AMA, American Medical Association; NIH, National Institutes of Health.</p> <p>Table 3. Rubric for wiki assessment</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><col align="left" span="1" /><col align="left" span="1" /><thead><tr><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Grade</th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Characteristics</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">100</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Exceptional. The contribution is focused and accurate, and the interpretation of the case report correctly provides succinct explanations or analyses. The contribution provides a precise interpretation of the case report that is appropriate for the level required of the health care team role. The contribution reflects in-depth engagement with the topic, and highly skilled communicative ability. Clear ability to work with your team is demonstrated.</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">90</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Exceptional– Same as exceptional with a few errors.</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">80</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Satisfactory. The contribution is reasonably focused, and explanations or analyses are mostly correct with few errors. The responsibilities of the role are largely carried out at the appropriate level. The contribution reflects an above average engagement with the topic and communicative ability. An ability to work with your team is demonstrated.</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">70</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Satisfactory– Same as satisfactory with a few more errors.</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">60</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Underdeveloped. The contribution is not well focused, and explanations or analyses contain several errors. The responsibilities of the role were not fully carried out at the appropriate level. The entry reflects an average engagement with the topic and communicative ability. An ability to work with your team is demonstrated.</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">50</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Underdeveloped– Same as underdeveloped with more errors.</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">40</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Limited. The contribution is unfocused, and explanations or analyses contain many errors. The responsibilities of the role are not fully carried out and are not at the appropriate level. The contribution reflects an average engagement with the topic and communicative ability. An ability to with your team is not clearly demonstrated.</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">30</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Limited– Same as limited with more errors.</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">20</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Incomplete. The contribution is incomplete and consists of disconnected, inaccurate, or unclear information. The contribution is unfocused, of poor communicative ability, and displays no evidence of working within your team.</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">10</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Incomplete– Same as incomplete with more errors.</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Not attempted. No contribution is evident.</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>All students were evaluated using the same criteria presented in Table 2, and the assessments of this class were clearly stated on the LMS and in the syllabus. Given the focus of assessments on pronunciation, the grading criteria were applied to pronunciations of medical terms and were not required to be spoken using a specific accent. Spelling was emphasized without penalization for unrelated or nonmedical grammatical errors regardless of English fluency. This was done to provide as equitable of a learning environment as possible.</p> <hd1 id="AN0179943501-8">Final Project</hd1> <p>In the final evaluation week, students complete a final project demonstrating the skills they role-played throughout the semester. This summative assessment is designed to evaluate the course's overall five objectives and intentionally align assessments with objectives. The course objectives are as follows:</p> <p></p> <p> <ephtml> <table border="0" width="95%"><tr><td valign="top">1) </td><td colspan="5" valign="top"><p> Spell and define prefixes, suffixes, and stem words;</p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top">2) </td><td colspan="5" valign="top"><p> Correctly use and pronounce medical terms, as well as develop strategies for pronouncing unfamiliar terms;</p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top">3) </td><td colspan="5" valign="top"><p> Analyze key medical terms and identify commonly used medical abbreviations;</p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top">4) </td><td colspan="5" valign="top"><p> Identify terminology related to the major body organ systems and diseases; and</p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top">5) </td><td colspan="5" valign="top"><p> Interpret and understand medical case studies, case reports, and records.</p></td></tr></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>The final project requires students to individually play a new role of a medical scribe. An explanation of the medical scribe's role was presented to students as "medical scribes document medical information for a patient's electronic records. Often, a medical scribe is like a physician's administrative assistant and is responsible for taking notes during patient interviews and converting the doctor's notes into the patient's official medical records. A medical scribe must be fluent in medical terminology, and in the case of this project, be able to determine what information is critical for the patient's records."</p> <p>The students are given a new prerecorded video by the instructor that is fictional and not searchable on the web. The recording is of the instructor, pretending to update the new incoming physician about the patient's situation upon arriving in the emergency department. Students are required to generate a report for the patient's medical records and not simply write down a word-for-word transcript. The students are then required to list, analyze, and define the medical terms that the instructor uses in the verbal report. The rubric assessing the student's performance is included in Table 4.</p> <p>Table 4. Rubric for final project</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><col align="left" span="1" /><col align="left" span="1" /><col align="left" span="1" /><col align="left" span="1" /><thead><tr><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1" /><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Novice</th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Competent</th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Proficient</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Use and identification of medical terms</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The case report identifies few medical terms.</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The case report identifies some of the medical terms.</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The case report identifies most or all the medical terms.</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Definition of medical terms</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Few of the medical terms are correctly defined, and the errors do not demonstrate an understanding of the terms.</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Most of the medical terms are correctly defined, and there are few errors in the definitions.</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The medical terms are correctly analyzed and clearly broken down into the root word, combining term, prefix, and suffix where appropriate.</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Analysis of medical terms</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The medical terms are not broken down and the word analysis is inadequate.</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The medical terms are correctly analyzed with few errors, and broken down into the root word, combining term, prefix, and suffix where appropriate.</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The medical terms are correctly analyzed and clearly broken down into the root word, combining term, prefix, and suffix where appropriate.</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Spelling of medical terms</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The case report is not coherent and is not easily understood. Abbreviations are not spelled correctly.</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The case report often but not consistently uses correct spelling of medical terms throughout. Abbreviations are often spelled correctly.</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The case report uses correct spelling of medical terms throughout. Any abbreviations are spelled correctly.</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Quality of written case report</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The case report is not coherent and is not easily understood.</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The case report includes relevant information and is sufficiently organized and understandable.</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The case report clearly states all relevant medical information and is easily understood.</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Grammar of case report</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The medical terms are not broken down and the word analysis is inadequate.</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The case report often uses clear grammar and is understandable with minimal errors.</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The case report consistently uses clear grammar and is understandable.</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd1 id="AN0179943501-9">Face-to-Face Course</hd1> <p>First-year dental students were randomly assigned to a "health care team." There is a set enrollment of 50 students per class. Therefore, we had 10 teams of 5 students each. Each week, two groups were assigned a medical case report for which they prepared a 20- to 25-min presentation for the class.</p> <p>All work was to be posted in the LMS in a wiki. The deadline for all roles each week was Fridays, except for the attending physician whose post was due on Wednesdays. Each person in the team was responsible for a separate task including the pharmacist role and these roles were randomly assigned to students (Table 1). Students who were presenting that week were evaluated according to the rubric in Table 3. Presentations were scored by three faculty members and the average score was given to the students. Presentations were prepared in PowerPoint or Google Slides.</p> <p>Students who were not presenting that week were assigned one of the two cases for the week. Students were asked to identify medical terms that needed to be defined (like the attending physician) and to break each word down into its parts (like the intern). This assignment was due on the day the case was presented. This assignment was graded on its completeness for a total of 25 points. Therefore, each student had the opportunity to earn points for each presentation week.</p> <hd1 id="AN0179943501-10">Data Collection</hd1> <p>After each semester's course, an anonymous survey was sent to students in both undergraduate and graduate dental courses (Table 5). Students were asked to rate their agreement or disagreement with each statement on a five-point Likert scale. Data were collected using Qualtrics.</p> <p>Table 5. Postcourse survey</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><col align="left" span="1" /><col align="left" span="1" /><thead><tr><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Question</th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Survey for Assessing Student Perception of Effectiveness of the Medical Terminology Course</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>1</italic></td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The course requirements were clearly communicated to the class</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>2</italic></td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Course homework assignments were meaningful and helped with learning the material</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>3</italic></td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Case studies were interesting and helped me identify important medical terms</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>4</italic></td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Identifying medical terms through case studies is more effective for my learning than memorizing</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>5</italic></td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The assigned roles helped to distribute work fairly among the group</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>6</italic></td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Assigning different roles made the identifying of terms more engaging</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>7</italic></td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">I feel confident pronouncing medical terms after taking this class</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>8</italic></td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">I feel confident with medical term definitions after taking this class</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0179943501-11">RESULTS</hd> <hd1 id="AN0179943501-12">Fully Online Course</hd1> <p>Figure 1 summarizes the results from the 24 undergraduate students who responded to the Qualtrics survey sent to all students in the Spring 2023 and Fall 2023 semesters. In the spring 2023 semester, 18 students completed the class in Spring 2023 and 15 responded (83%) to the survey. The Fall 2023 semester had 16 enrolled students, and 9 responded to the survey (56%). Figure 1 summarizes the results of the combined 24 respondents to the survey. In total, 92% of students responded that they strongly or somewhat agree with each of the eight questions.</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR): Figure 1. Qualtrics survey results for undergraduate students enrolled in the fully online medical terminology course for both semesters. The y-axis shows the total number of survey respondents to each question listed on the x-axis for each of the 8 questions (Q).</p> <p>The results of each student's responses for the online, stand-alone medical terminology course are shown in Table 6. Survey <emph>questions 1</emph> through <emph>6</emph> claimed a 67% to 87.5% strongly agree response, with a somewhat agree response in a range of 12.5% to 33%. This changed for <emph>questions 7</emph> and <emph>8</emph> in which students needed to evaluate their confidence in their ability to pronounce and define medical terminology where only 50% to 54% stated they strongly agreed they had confidence and 46% somewhat agreed that they felt confident.</p> <p>Table 6. Survey results for the online course</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><col align="left" span="1" /><col align="char" span="1" /><col align="char" span="1" /><col align="char" span="1" /><col align="char" span="1" /><col align="char" span="1" /><col align="char" span="1" /><col align="char" span="1" /><col align="char" span="1" /><thead><tr><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1" /><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Q1</italic></th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Q2</italic></th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Q3</italic></th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Q4</italic></th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Q5</italic></th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Q6</italic></th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Q7</italic></th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Q8</italic></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Strongly disagree</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Somewhat disagree</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Neither agree nor disagree</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">2</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">1</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">1</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Somewhat agree</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">4</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">4</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">3</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">8</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">6</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">5</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">11</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">11</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Strongly agree</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">20</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">20</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">21</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">16</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">16</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">18</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">12</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">13</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Total</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">24</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">24</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">24</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">24</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">24</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">24</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">24</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">24</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>3 Q, question.</p> <hd1 id="AN0179943501-13">Face-to-Face Course</hd1> <p>First-year dental students had overall positive feedback about the use of role-play in the medical terminology course. Indeed, 99% of the students indicated either "somewhat agree" or "strongly agree" for each of the eight questions. In particular, 71% of the students "strongly agreed" and 20% of the students "somewhat agreed" that they felt confident with medical definitions after taking this class. Figure 2 represents data from face-to-face classes with first-year dental students; survey data are included in Table 7.</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR): Figure 2. Five-point Likert scale survey results for face-to-face students. The y-axis shows the total number of survey respondents to each question listed on the x-axis for each of the 8 questions (Q).</p> <p>Table 7. Survey results for the face-to-face course</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><col align="left" span="1" /><col align="char" span="1" /><col align="char" span="1" /><col align="char" span="1" /><col align="char" span="1" /><col align="char" span="1" /><col align="char" span="1" /><col align="char" span="1" /><col align="char" span="1" /><thead><tr><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1" /><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Q1</italic></th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Q2</italic></th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Q3</italic></th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Q4</italic></th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Q5</italic></th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Q6</italic></th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Q7</italic></th><th align="center" rowspan="1" colspan="1"><italic>Q8</italic></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Strongly disagree</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">2</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">1</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">2</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">1</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">3</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">2</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">2</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">2</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Somewhat disagree</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">1</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">1</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">2</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">7</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">6</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">5</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">2</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">2</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Neither agree nor disagree</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">1</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">3</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">4</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">3</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">3</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">6</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">4</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">5</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Somewhat agree</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">7</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">25</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">19</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">20</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">26</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">23</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">38</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">23</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Strongly agree</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">85</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">66</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">69</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">65</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">58</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">60</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">50</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">64</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Total</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">96</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">96</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">96</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">96</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">96</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">96</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">96</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">96</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>4 Q, question.</p> <p>As an additional assignment, students were asked to write a poem, in any style they wished, either using medical terminology or describing how to break down medical terms. Examples of students' poems are included in Fig. 3.</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR): Figure 3. Representative examples of student-created poems on medical terminology or their analyses from the face-to-face class.</p> <hd id="AN0179943501-14">DISCUSSION</hd> <p>Despite relatively minor differences in the student self-reports between the undergraduate fully online stand-alone course and the first-year graduate dental course, students highly rated the effectiveness and the role-play and versatile active application through group work using published case reports for learning medical terminology. Overall, 92% to 99% of students reported the use of role-playing based on simulated roles of healthcare teams: a confidence-boosting method of learning that is both active and engaging for undergraduate and graduate students alike. Furthermore, 90% of the students in the face-to-face course and 100% of the students in the online course prefer this engaged, team-based pedagogy to a method that focuses on rote memorization as evidenced by student self-report on survey <emph>question 4</emph>.</p> <p>Even with a favorable view of this creative pedagogy, it is notable that the highest percentage (83%) of undergraduate students "strongly agreed" with the utility of active learning techniques as shown by the ratings of the first four survey questions and then reduced to 54% when stating how confident they felt in their ability to pronounce and define medical terminology on survey <emph>questions 7</emph> and <emph>8</emph>. This contrasts the graduate dental students' evaluations of methodology because a maximum of 94% of students strongly agreed with the efficacy of role-play as demonstrated by self-report on survey <emph>questions 1</emph>–<emph>4</emph>. The highest percentage of graduate dental students evaluated their confidence as 68% in the strongly agree category when rating survey <emph>questions 7</emph> and <emph>8</emph>. These differences could be due to age and academic experience in higher education between the two populations as well as the innate differences in a face-to-face versus fully online, asynchronous course ([<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref18">21</reflink>]–[<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref19">24</reflink>]).</p> <hd1 id="AN0179943501-15">Online Course</hd1> <p>Although medical terminology is a course required for admission to some allied health programs such as medical imaging and pre-graduate programs such as physician's assistant school, many students take medical terminology because they view it as a useful course to help prepare them for their future health-related careers. At many undergraduate institutions, prehealth students take one or two semesters of anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology, and despite hearing words pronounced by the instructors of courses, students do not feel confident in pronouncing medical terms until they have reached the final year of graduate medical school ([<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref20">25</reflink>]).</p> <p>The inclusion of the homework assignment automatically graded by the textbook publisher helped to replace the breadth of exposure to word analysis and the body system's terminology based on the entirety of a chapter's content. The depth of learning was facilitated through the group roles, in which the students were assigned one role each week and rotated through each role at least two times a semester. The variety of roles served two primary purposes: to require students to practice verbal and written identification and application of medical terminology depending on that week's role and to engage students through changing assignments and the opportunity to practice expected skills in real-life scenarios.</p> <p>Despite contradictory reports of student learning and assessment between online and in-person courses in the health sciences ([<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref21">26</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref22">27</reflink>]), students can determine their work schedule in an asynchronous online course. The changing nature of the coursework and roleplay provides students the opportunity to take ownership of their learning and learn how to work remotely in teams. Historically, this would not be viewed as an advantage; however, remote positions and investment in telework have been on the rise since the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown telework ([<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref23">28</reflink>]).</p> <p>The fully online course eliminates the need for the student to attend a synchronous course. This should not be confused with the instructor's workload to provide careful feedback to students so that students may improve future coursework in each role and compensate for the lack of direct time with the instructor. The undergraduate institution at which this fully online course is employed is a two-credit class that reflects the expected student workload. The instructor will spend 2 h per "healthcare team" grading and administering the course each week, which is typically 6–8 h weekly for a class consisting of four to five groups. The effectiveness of the implementation of this undergraduate fully online course has been used at our institution for English language learners (ELLs) who need additional medical English practice, and other institutions have reported the value of active learning techniques for teaching ELL students medical terminology in English as well ([<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref24">29</reflink>]).</p> <p>During the 10 yr of teaching this fully online course, some common pitfalls have occurred in its implementation. Students may be unaccustomed to professional communication via email to team members about their timeliness in completing their own work or when to expect others' work despite clear deadlines provided by the instructor. This is addressed by modeling professional and collegial communication to student groups while reinforcing expectations. Furthermore, students are asked at the end of each semester to evaluate their work and effectiveness as a team member, as well as the other team members, in a private journal in the LMS at the end of the semester. There are clearly stated expectations and learning outcomes listed in the course, as well as guidance and a grading rubric for each healthcare team role. Even so, students often struggle the first time in each role to understand how to carry out these expectations and demonstrate completion of the learning objective. For this reason, a template and an example of each healthcare team member's role are provided to all students at the start of the second week of class so that all students understand what is expected of them in the course. Both this model and template were designed using the principles of UDL so that all students, regardless of English-language or medical language experience can achieve the same outcome and demonstrate their ability to meet the learning objectives.</p> <hd1 id="AN0179943501-16">Face-to-Face Course</hd1> <p>For first-year dental students, role-play within this course allowed the students to interact one-on-one. Because these students will spend ∼50 h per week together for the next 4 yr, it is important for them to develop strong working relationships with each other. Through role-play, a sense of shared goals and achievements can be developed that may transcend this single course. Most students gave positive feedback for each of the questions. However, there were a couple of students who did not feel that the case studies were more effective than memorizing would have been for learning medical terms. In addition, some students did not agree that the assigned roles distributed the work fairly among the group. These viewpoints were reflected in the students' scoring of the survey questions of "strongly disagree" or "disagree." Moving forward, we plan to practice pronouncing the medical terms with our students since some mispronunciations occurred, and we plan to work one-on-one with the students assigned the nurse role. Students in this role were not as effective at translating the terminology to a sixth- to seventh-grade reading level. Speculatively, it is possible that these students did not want to appear to misunderstand the case and the medical terms.</p> <p>One assignment that the face-to-face students particularly enjoyed was the poetry assignment. They were asked to create a poem using medical terms or describing how to evaluate and pronounce medical terms. They could use any poetry form they chose. The resulting poems ranged from short to long and from humorous to quite serious. Many of the students found this assignment a fresh and creative way to learn vocabulary.</p> <p>The ratings of student dissatisfaction were more prevalent in the graduate dental face-to-face course than in the undergraduate fully online course. There were no ratings of "strongly disagree" nor "disagree" for any of the eight questions asked in the survey by the online students. Given the lack of pedagogical difference between the two courses, this difference can be attributed to the difference between course delivery (online vs. in-person) or the students themselves. It is possible that online students' perception of the course was improved by the engaging active learning method. Multiple reports comparing student preference between online and in-person learning consistently demonstrate that health science students prefer in-person courses ([<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref25">21</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref26">30</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref27">31</reflink>]). For this reason, the authors speculate that the greater level of dissatisfaction may be attributable to student academic success. Graduate dental students have more years of academic success than most undergraduate students and have demonstrated an ability for independent, self-reliant learning due to their longer time in higher education and high academic achievement to be admitted to dental school.</p> <hd1 id="AN0179943501-17">Conclusion</hd1> <p>The use of role-play as an active learning technique and team-based learning have been shown here to be valued by both undergraduate and graduate dental students whether the course is online or face-to-face. The authors conclude that this is an effective and engaging way to facilitate student learning. The foundational use of role-play to learn medical terminology described in this article remains the first reported to the authors' knowledge.</p> <hd id="AN0179943501-18">DATA AVAILABILITY</hd> <p>Data will be made available upon reasonable request.</p> <hd id="AN0179943501-19">DISCLOSURES</hd> <p>No conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise, are declared by the authors.</p> <hd id="AN0179943501-20">AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS</hd> <p>B.L.M.d.M. conceived and designed research; B.L.M.d.M., C.L.V., and B.A.M. performed experiments; B.L.D., C.L.V., and B.A.M. analyzed data; B.L.M.d.M., C.L.V., and B.A.M. interpreted results of experiments; B.L.M.d.M., C.L.V., and B.A.M. prepared figures; B.L.M.d.M. drafted manuscript; B.L.M.d.M., C.L.V., and B.A.M. edited and revised manuscript; B.L.M.d.M., C.L.V., and B.A.M. approved final version of manuscript.</p> <hd1 id="AN0179943501-21">ACKNOWLEDGMENTS</hd1> <p>The authors thank Dr. Jane M. Wenzel for contributions to designing and building the fully online course at Edgewood College. Her clear guides and seamless flow of pertinent information continue to allow for a positive student experience. Dr. Donika Rakacolli developed the template and model for each role of the healthcare team as well as a clear statement of grading criteria, which has been instrumental in making the online course equitable.</p> <ref id="AN0179943501-22"> <title> REFERENCES </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref1" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Del Moral B. Role-playing through medical terminology. In: 29th Human Anatomy & Physiology Society Annual Conference. LaGrange, GA: Human Anatomy and Physiology Society, 2015.Google Scholar</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Del Moral B, Wenzel J. Bringing "life" to a fully online medical terminology course. In: 33rd Distance Teaching & Learning Conference. 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  Data: The Use of Role-Play in the Learning of Medical Terminology for Online and Face-to-Face Courses
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Brenda+L%2E+M%2E+del+Moral%22">Brenda L. M. del Moral</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4586-9709">0000-0002-4586-9709</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Cinnamon+L%2E+VanPutte%22">Cinnamon L. VanPutte</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Barbara+A%2E+McCracken%22">Barbara A. McCracken</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Advances+in+Physiology+Education%22"><i>Advances in Physiology Education</i></searchLink>. 2024 48(3):578-587.
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  Data: American Physiological Society. 9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20814-3991. Tel: 301-634-7164; Fax: 301-634-7241; e-mail: webmaster@the-aps.org; Web site: https://www.physiology.org/journal/advances
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  Data: 10
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  Data: 2024
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  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Higher+Education%22">Higher Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Postsecondary+Education%22">Postsecondary Education</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Online+Courses%22">Online Courses</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22In+Person+Learning%22">In Person Learning</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Role+Playing%22">Role Playing</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Medicine%22">Medicine</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Vocabulary+Development%22">Vocabulary Development</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Allied+Health+Occupations+Education%22">Allied Health Occupations Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Health+Sciences%22">Health Sciences</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Undergraduate+Students%22">Undergraduate Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Dentistry%22">Dentistry</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Graduate+Students%22">Graduate Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Active+Learning%22">Active Learning</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Group+Activities%22">Group Activities</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Teamwork%22">Teamwork</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Learning+Management+Systems%22">Learning Management Systems</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Group+Dynamics%22">Group Dynamics</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Illinois%22">Illinois</searchLink>
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  Data: 10.1152/advan.00273.2023
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  Data: 1043-4046<br />1522-1229
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  Data: Student engagement while learning a new, unfamiliar vocabulary is challenging in health science courses. A group role-play activity was created to teach students medical terminology and learn why its correct usage is important. This activity brought engagement and relevance to a topic traditionally taught through lecture and rote memorization and led to the development of an undergraduate and a stand-alone introductory course to teach students medical terminology. The undergraduate course was designed to be a fully online medical terminology course for health science students and a face-to-face course for first-year dental students founded in active learning and group work. The course's centerpiece learning activity focused on using published case studies with role-play. In this group activity, students are challenged to interpret a published patient case study as one of the members of a healthcare team. This course models the group work inherent in modern health care to practice building community and practicing professional skills. This approach gives students the capacity to work asynchronously in a team-based approach using our learning management system's wiki tool and requires students to take responsibility for their learning and group dynamics. Students practice identification, writing, analyzing, and speaking medical terms while rotating through the roles. Students in both classes self-reported a 92% to 99% strong or somewhat agreement using a five-point Likert scale that the course pedagogy was valued and helpful in their learning of medical terminology. Overall, this method has proven to be an engaging way for students to learn medical terminology.
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  Data: 2024
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        PageCount: 10
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