Abstract
In a fourth year undergraduate nutritional toxicology course that included an instructional emphasis on scientific literature critique activities and assessments, we determined the change in students’ (n=144) scientific literacy (SL) skills. The change in students’ perceived and practical SL skills were determined by the completion of two surveys, administered at the start and end of the semester. Additionally, we conducted a follow-up SL survey at the end of the subsequent academic semester (i.e., four months later) to determine if students retained any improvements in their SL skills. Over the semester, students showed improvements in their perceived capabilities of all SL skill parameters assessed (P<0.05); however, the most significant gains were apparent in the areas of i) knowledge application (specifically identifying novel problems or research questions and using new information to address unfamiliar problems or knowledge gaps), and ii) knowledge translation and communication (translating complex information from the scientific literature into clear and understandable terms). There was no change in students TOSLS score between the start and end of the semester (P>0.05). In the follow-up SL survey students showed further improvements in their perceptions of the SL skills for 7 or the 10 parameters assessed compared to the end of the previous semester (P<0.05), however, there remained no change in their practical SL skills assessed using TOSLS. Collectively, these data demonstrate that students’ perceptions of their SL capabilities may not align with their practical capabilities.
Highlights
Following the completion of an undergraduate degree in biological science, it is expected that graduates exhibit strong transferable skills in collaboration, critical thinking and problem-solving to ensure employment attainment and retention (Newton, Bettger, Buchholz, Kulak, & Racey, 2015; Wensing & Grol, 2019; Sibley, Roche, Bell, Temple & Wittmeier, 2017)
The current study assessed the changes in perceptions of and practical scientific literacy (SL) skills of biological science undergraduate students in a fourth year nutritional toxicology course at the beginning and end of the semester, as well as four months after completion of the course in which scaffolded SL activities were completed
Over the course of the semester, students’ demonstrated improvements in both their approaches to critically assessing research studies and their perceptions of their SL skills, there was no change in their practical SL skills, assessed using test of scientific literacy survey (TOSLS)
Summary
Following the completion of an undergraduate degree in biological science, it is expected that graduates exhibit strong transferable skills in collaboration, critical thinking and problem-solving to ensure employment attainment and retention (Newton, Bettger, Buchholz, Kulak, & Racey, 2015; Wensing & Grol, 2019; Sibley, Roche, Bell, Temple & Wittmeier, 2017) To support these expectations, undergraduate teaching strategies should directly stimulate high-level skill development while simultaneously meeting course learning objectives (Newton et al, 2015). A shift from passive to active learning, through diverse teaching activities and assessments at the undergraduate level has been shown to result in a deeper student understanding concepts, with simultaneous development of problem solving, critical thinking and SL skills, in particular the retrieval and utilization of scientific information (Salama & Chennaoui, 2016). We conducted a follow-up SL skill assessment at the end of the subsequent academic semester to determine their degree of SL skill retention
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