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HOW WE TEACH

Learning scientific and medical terminology with a mnemonic strategy using an illogical association technique

¹ University of Dayton, Department of Health and Sport Science, Dayton ² Miami Valley Career Technology Center, Clayton, Ohio

Address for reprint requests and other correspondence: C. J. Brahler, Univ. of Dayton, Dept. of Health and Sport Science, Dayton, OH 45469 (e-mail: brahler{at}udayton.edu)

For students pursuing careers in medical fields, knowledge of technical and medical terminology is prerequisite to being able to solve problems in their respective disciplines and professions. The Dean Vaughn Medical Terminology 350 Total Retention System, also known as Medical Terminology 350 (25), is a mnemonic instructional and learning strategy that combines mental imagery and keyword mnemonic elaboration processes to help students recall the scientific meaning of Greek and Latin word parts. High school students in Anatomy and Physiology classes at a career technology center were divided into experimental (Medical Terminology 350), control (rote memorization), or combination (Medical Terminology 350 and rote memorization) groups and completed pre- and posttests of standardized word recall tests. Students in the Dean Vaughn Medical Terminology 350 Total Retention System group achieved significantly greater pre- to posttest word recall improvement compared with students in both the rote memorization (P 0.0001) and combined rote memorization and Medical Terminology 350 (P 0.05) groups. There appeared to be a dose-dependent response as the pre- to posttest gain in word recall scores increased as exposure to the treatment increased.

Key words: medical vocabulary; pedagogy; mental imagery