Melike Akcaalan; Begumhan Turhan; Murat Golpinar; Mehmet Akcaalan; Hande Salim Ari  & Ayhan Comert

Stories are an education tool and teaching strategy, which makes lectures more memorable. This study aimed to determine the efficiency of the storytelling technique on an example anatomy lecture for terminal branches of brachial plexus. The class (n=90 students) was divided into two groups as Group 1 (n=47 storytelling group) and Group 2 (n=43 direct instruction group). Three stories related to terminal branches of brachial plexus were told to Group 1 in advance. Group 2 were lectured with the same subject by the instructor by using the theoretical direct instruction method as usual. Both groups underwent an examination including 20 questions after the instructions. Moreover, the feedback of the storytelling group (Group 1) was evaluated using an agreement scale. The mean age was 19.85±0.96 years. The results of the achievement test showed a significant difference between the groups. The storytelling group is higher than the results of the direct instruction group (p<0.05). More than 85 % of the students strongly or completely agree that storytelling is a good teaching method, helpful to explain the anatomy topics, helpful for understanding the subject, listening to the lesson described by storytelling technique is more effective than reading the book and this method accelerates the anatomy learning process. It can be said that the students in the storytelling group were satisfied with the anatomy lecture in many aspects. Our study suggests that storytelling could be a supplementary method in anatomy education.

KEY WORDS: Anatomy; Brachial plexus; Education; Medical faculty.