3D Anatomy atlases for teaching Russian professional vocabulary to foreign medical students

Implementation of modern and efficient approaches to successful language training of foreign medical students is an urgent and complex task in medical education. This course is especially difficult because Russian professional medical vocabulary is extensive, has complex morphological composition and is connected in its etymology with the Latin language. The aim of the study is to test the effectiveness of computer 3D anatomy atlases for learning medical professional vocabulary on the selected topics of the discipline ‘General Anatomy’ in Russian as a foreign language. The authors used theoretical (analysis, comparison, and generalization) and diagnostic (experimental training, testing, interview, and questionnaire) methods. The obtained data were tested for the statistical significance by means of Pearson’s Chi-squa re test and the calculation of P-value (P-value = 0.04). They showed the positive influence of anatomical 3D atlases on understanding and memorization of Russian professional vocabulary among first-year foreign medical students. The final tests (online test and interview) after 5-months of experimental training showed that the number of positive (4 “good” and 5 “excellent”) results among the students of the experimental groups exceeded the number of successful results of the control groups by 19%. In their questionnaires, the participants highly appreciated the visibility and effectiveness of the modern tools (33 per cent more positive responses) compared to traditional ones. The prospect of the further research in this area may include the creation and testing of a system of electronic interactive exercises and an electronic educational thesaurus with audio content as a special addition or add-on for the interface of modern 3D anatomy atlases.