The “Anatomy Colored Cards Game” – An alternative, inexpensive and accessible teaching tool for anatomy students

The aim of this research was to create, use and evaluate an alternative tool to audience response system (ARS) without the use of electronic equipment’s, fast internet connection and Wi-Fi network, with a very low cost. The students’ outcome in the tests and their perception of the activity was also evaluated. The “Anatomy Colored Cards Game” was created, and was used one week before the final anatomy test, in order to review basic concepts of anatomy. Each student received four colored cards made of paperboard (yellow, blue, green and red). After the distribution of the cards, the teacher showed a Power Point presentation with multiple choice questions, where each response corresponded to one color of the colored card. The students had 30 seconds to choose the correct answer and were asked to raise the colored card correspondent to their response. At the end of the activity, students were invited to blindly express their satisfaction with the activity. The outcomes of the students in the final exams were compared with the outcomes of students from the classes of the two previous years of the same course, which had the same lectures and laboratory classes with the same teachers. The students referred to the game as amusing, stimulant, useful and interesting. The final grades were improved and the failure rates decreased in the class that used the game as a learning tool. The “Anatomy Color Cards Game” proved to be a simple and inexpensive active methodology important as an auxiliary anatomy teaching resource.