How do students deal with difficult physiological knowledge?

Physiology courses are considered to be challenging for students to master due to the highly conceptual nature of the discipline and the substantial cognitive effort required to understand disciplinary knowledge. Students must choose appropriate learning strategies to develop their understanding, as their choices may influence both their understanding and their academic achievement. The primary aim of this study was to develop an understanding of why students experience difficulties with physiology and how they respond when facing the challenge of learning this discipline. Undergraduate allied health students (n = 231) studying physiology were asked to identify the topics they had difficulty understanding, the strategies they used to deal with that difficult knowledge, and the reasons for their difficulties. Consenting students’ responses were subjected to inductive and deductive thematic analyses, and their performance on examinations were collated. Students reported that they found physiology difficult due to their lack of familiarity with it and the level of detail required. To aid their understanding of difficult topics, students commonly reported reviewing information, seeking further information, and seeking social assistance, with more high-achieving students reporting reviewing records, and fewer reporting seeking social assistance than poor-achieving students. Most notably, a disconnect was found between students’ reporting of difficult modules and their academic achievement on those modules, with students who cited difficulties performing equally well, if not better, than those who do not. Importantly, these findings suggest that students, in recognizing their difficulties and the reasons for them, can implement effective learning strategies to overcome them.