Dr. Jennifer M. Burgoon, PhD

Associate Professor of Anatomy
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine – Seton Hill

Dr. Jennifer M. Burgoon earned her B.S. in Biology, with a minor in Chemistry, summa cum laude, from Baldwin Wallace University (formerly Baldwin-Wallace College) in 1992. She subsequently worked as a research technician at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, where she developed expertise in histological sectioning and staining.

She completed her M.S. in Cell Biology and Anatomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2001. Her thesis, Analysis of a Folate Deficient Mouse Model with Abnormal Embryonic Development, examined developmental abnormalities associated with folate deficiency. She later earned her Ph.D. in Education (research track in Educational Psychology, Measurement, and Evaluation, with a concentration in College Teaching) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2008. Her dissertation, An Investigation of the Self-Efficacy of Medical Students for the Anatomy Curriculum: Role of Gender, Prior Experience, and Its Influence on Academic Achievement, explored factors influencing student success in anatomy education. During her graduate training, Dr. Burgoon taught in the Department of Biology at both the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at Millikin University.

After graduation, Dr. Burgoon spent fourteen years at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, where she taught thousands of students. For example, she prepared pre-entry medical students for the medical gross anatomy coursework in the MedPath program, as well as both pre-entry medical and dental students for histology coursework through the MedPath and DentPath programs, respectively.

In 2022, Dr. Burgoon joined the faculty at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM)-Seton Hill as an Associate Professor of Anatomy. At LECOM-Seton Hill, she assists in the instruction of gross anatomy and histology, as well as facilitates problem-based learning (PBL). She also teaches in the Master of Science in Medical Education (MSMEd) Program.

Dr. Burgoon has published numerous peer-reviewed teaching resources and journal articles, contributed to white papers for national professional societies, and delivered invited presentations at a number of institutions. She is also the author of an undergraduate human gross anatomy textbook published in 2021.

Her current research agenda focuses on two primary areas. First, she continues to advance the use of the Anatomical Self-Efficacy Instrument (ASEI), developed during her graduate training, which measures professional students’ self-efficacy in the gross anatomy curriculum. Anatomical self-efficacy is someone’s beliefs about their abilities to successfully perform a task related to the anatomy curriculum (e.g., learning anatomical terms, dissecting, applying anatomical knowledge), and has been shown to predict performance on written examinations and laboratory practicals (Burgoon et al., 2012). Second, she collaborates with LECOM–Seton Hill faculty and students on PBL research, examining the role of artificial intelligence, particularly large language models, as well as the impact of gamification on student learning outcomes.