Effects of a Data Analysis Intensive Course on Student Critical Thinking Skills, Confidence, and Post‐Graduation Success

Abstract

Bio 404: Nuclear Structure and Function is an advanced cell and molecular biology course taken by junior and senior undergraduates at Westminster College (New Wilmington, PA). The course averages 10 students, representing majors in Molecular Biology, Biology, Neuroscience and Biochemistry. While the content of the course focuses on the architectural aspects of nuclear cell biology and the molecular understanding of gene expression and genome structure, the major objective of the course is to use primary and secondary literature in order to broaden students' scientific skill set in content comprehension, data analysis, productive scientific discussion, oral presentation, and scientific writing. In order to achieve these objectives the course schedule is divided into four units (Nuclear Periphery, Nuclear Pore, Chromatin and Nuclear Bodies), each of which is comprised of multiple, one‐week modules. Each module is designed to introduce students to a new concept then builds on this knowledge by developing models from data and concludes with presentation and discussion of current research in the field. Specifically, a module consists of three one hour course sessions: first a lecture introducing the week's theme, based on a recent review article on the topic, second a “Work it out Wednesday” session during which students are provided with a packet of data derived from one or more primary research articles accompanied by probing questions about the methodology, results and interpretation, with students working in groups of 3–4 to analyze the data and develop a model that explains the data and it's links back to concepts learned in lecture, and finally the module concludes with a journal club session where one student is responsible for leading a discussion on an assigned primary article that correlates with the information learned in the previous two sessions. Course evaluations from the 2016 offering of the course indicated that students thought the course was well organized, was a valuable learning experience and that the assignments had instructional value; moreover, exam and course grades in 2016 improved over the 2014 offering, which was structured in a more traditional lecture style. As a result of these positive outcomes with the change in course format a more formalized analysis of student gains and perceptions of the course will be performed during the spring 2018 offering. This presentation will consist of an example of a course module as well as preliminary data from the 2018 study. These results will include outcomes from skills tests and perceptions surveys performed at the beginning and middle of the semester, as well as results from alumni surveys from the 2014 and 2016 cohorts.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.