Abstract:

OBJECTIVE: The study was carried out in order to determine the perceptions of the students studying in different programs in the vocational school of health services about the concept of "Anatomy" through metaphor. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study universe and sample consisted of the students from the vocational school of health services (VSHS) of our university. The research was carried out with the metaphor analysis technique. 215 of the 300 students in VSHS volunteered to participate. Since the answers of 20 students did not contain any meaningful metaphors or produced any metaphors, the metaphors of 195 students were evaluated in the study. The study data were collected between January and February 2022 using a brief questionnaire on demographic characteristics and by prompting the students to complete the metaphorical statement “Anatomy is like … because…”. RESULTS: In our study, a comparison between the programs could not be made, since more participation was not achieved than the students in some programs. However, since there are also 2nd grade students in the Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Program, positive metaphors are produced more in this program. 2nd grade students have more positive thoughts about anatomy than 1st grade students. CONCLUSIONS: Since anatomy is a fundamental discipline for healthcare professionals, the perceptions of VSHS students about anatomy are very important. While the metaphors of “light” and “map” about anatomy shows the awareness of the significance of anatomy among the students, metaphors of “ocean”, “abyss” and “desert” are striking examples that indicate how desperate they feel about learning anatomy.

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