Authentic Scientific Practices Research Articles

Student definitions of ownership and perceived ways ownership influences writing in a biology laboratory class.

Laboratory courses offer a unique opportunity, and sometimes challenge, to engage students in projects where they can experience ownership and authentic science practices. An important science practice is writing, which can lead to increased learning about concepts and science communication. Experiencing a sense of ownership in research can lead to various student outcomes, such as increased motivation, greater interest in research, and higher retention in STEM fields. Although previous work has extracted aspects of ownership from students' descriptions of research experiences, studies have not examined directly how students define and perceive ownership. In addition, we do not have a clear idea of whether a sense of ownership is related to student attitudes toward scientific writing in a lab course setting. To better understand the relationship between ownership and writing directly from students' perspectives, we used analysis of student responses to surveys and interviews in an upper-division laboratory course. Using a grounded theory approach for the analysis of 167 survey responses and 9 interviews, we found that students have varying perceptions of project ownership, with the most frequent being opportunities to contribute ideas and shape the project (autonomy), doing the work, and leadership. Students largely perceived that increased ownership had positive influences on their writing, such as increased understanding and thinking, freedom in writing, and increased motivation. Learning about how students perceive ownership in the context of a lab course is useful for considering how lab course structure may support the development of a sense of ownership and may influence how we can engage students in meaningful writing practices.

Development of the Quantitative Modelling Observation Protocol (QMOP) for undergraduate biology courses: validity evidence for score interpretation and uses

ABSTRACT Educational reform priorities such as emphasis on quantitative modelling (QM) have positioned undergraduate biology instructors as designers of QM experiences to engage students in authentic science practices that support the development of data-driven and evidence-based reasoning. Yet, little is known about how biology instructors adapt to the pedagogical movement towards incorporating QM opportunities for students in the courses they teach. This study presents the development of the Quantitative Modelling Observation Protocol (QMOP), a classroom observation instrument designed to support the need to characterise various approaches that instructors use to implement QM instruction in undergraduate biology. QMOP provides information about the breadth and depth of QM implementation across three dimensions – authentic instruction, teaching for understanding, and quantitative approach to teaching biology. We present an interpretive argument, the chain of assumptions we made in relation to the intended use of the instrument, and evidence to assess the validity of our assumptions and inferences about observation scores generated using the instrument. Strengths and weaknesses of evidence pertaining to assumptions about scoring, generalisability, extrapolation, and implications will be discussed to build a validity argument for observations and demonstrate how the instrument can be used for investigating QM instruction in undergraduate biology courses.

Active learning in STEM education

Although inquiry-based learning originated in physics and science education, where students are involved in authentic scientific practices, it also occurs in mathematical or technological contexts. This approach to learning mirrors the procedure and thinking that scientists, engineers, and innovators use in the real world. As a result, inquiry-based learning naturally suits to related disciplines such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics or STEM disciplines. In this paper we present examples of STEM related projects designed for students in order to solve real-life problems using digital technologies to support inquiry represented by modelling or experimental approach. Examples of interdisciplinary projects involve motion of sportsmen, sky or scuba divers, or solving other problems using various programming platforms. Students working on interdisciplinary projects effectively use and deepen their knowledge from different subjects and develop skills to use smart technologies and coding. As a result, they move from the role of passive users to active learners and designers.

The Classroom‐Research‐Mentoring Framework: A lens for understanding science practice‐based instruction

AbstractReformed science curricula provide opportunities for students to engage with authentic science practices. However, teacher implementation of such curricula requires teachers to consider their role in the classroom, including realigning instructional decisions with the epistemic aims of science. Guiding newcomers in science can take place in settings ranging from the classroom to the undergraduate research laboratory. We suggest thinking about the potential intersections of guiding students across these contexts is important. We describe the Classroom‐Research‐Mentoring (CRM) Framework as a novel lens for examining science practice‐based instruction. We present a comparative case study of two teachers as they instruct undergraduate students in a model‐based inquiry laboratory. We analyzed stimulated‐recall episodes uncovering how these teachers interacted with their students and the rationale behind their instructional choices. Through the application of the CRM Framework, we revealed ways teachers can have instructional goals that align with those of a research mentor. For example, our teachers had the goals of “creating an inclusive environment open to student ideas,” “acknowledging students as scientists,” and “focusing students on skills and ideas needed to solve biological problems.” We suggest three functions of research mentoring that translate across the classroom and research laboratory settings: (1) build a shared understanding of epistemic aims, (2) support learners in the productive use of science practices, and (3) motivate learner engagement in science practices.

Authentic Scientific Research through an Undergraduate Ecology Course

Undergraduate science students who volunteer within a research laboratory group, or participate in funded research opportunities, in general are those who have the opportunity to engage in authentic research. In this article, we report the findings from two different iterations of a semester-long collaboration between a biology faculty member and a science education faculty member at a major research institution in the Southeastern United States. Specifically, the faculty members designed an ecology laboratory course for upper-level undergraduate students (primarily biology majors) where they would engage in an original and highly authentic ecological research project. The goal of this course was to have students explicitly learn about the nature of science (NOS), and authentic scientific practices such as inquiry and experimentation in the context of their own research. In the second year of the course, the global COVID-19 pandemic forced us to modify our approach to accomplish the same goals, but now in a remote and online format. Using questionnaires, concept inventories, and semi-structured interviews, the impact of the course on students’ understandings of NOS, inquiry, and experimentation, in addition to their perspectives on the experience within the course compared to prior laboratory coursework, was investigated. We found that students showed modest gains in each of the aforementioned desirable outcomes. These gains were generally comparable in both face-to-face and remote course settings. Additionally, students shared with us their preference for authentic laboratory work as compared with the typical laboratory work with its given research question and step-by-step instructions. Our research demonstrates what is possible in both face-to-face and remote undergraduate laboratory courses in biology and the positive impact that was observed in our students. We hope it serves as a model for other scientists and science educators as they collaborate to design authentic research-based coursework for undergraduate biology students.

Living the DReaM: The interrelations between statistical, scientific and nature of science uncertainty articulations through citizen science.

Responsible citizenship and sound decision-making in today's information age necessitate an appreciation of the role of uncertainty in the process of generating data-based scientific knowledge. The latter calls for coordinating between different types of uncertainties, related to three types of relevant reasoning: statistical, scientific, and nature of science uncertainties. This article examines separately the uncertainties that young students articulate as they engage in activities designed to concurrently foster all three types of reasoning, and also explores how these different types can interrelate. The context of Citizen Science is particularly suited for this goal, providing a unique pedagogical opportunity for learning scientific content by engaging learners in authentic scientific practices, including data analysis. Based on literature from the three fields of statistics, science and nature of science education, we offer an integrative framework, Deterministic Relativistic and Middle ground (DReaM), which consists of nine sub-categories of uncertainty articulations. We utilize it to analyze an instrumental case study of a pair of middle school students' (ages 13 and 14) participation in a pilot study of an interdisciplinary extended learning sequence, as part of the Radon Citizen Science Project. The results of an interpretative microgenetic analysis identified all nine DReaM uncertainty articulations sub-categories. These are illustrated in the Findings section with key scenes from the pair's participation. The discussion depicts how these sub-categories manifested in this particular case study and suggests interrelations between them in a more extended depiction of the DReaM framework. We conclude with the pedagogical implications of the extended framework.

Students’ views about experimental physics in a large-enrollment introductory lab focused on experimental scientific practices

A large-enrollment, introductory physics laboratory course at the University of Colorado Boulder has undergone a recent transformation to help students’ develop lab skills and better align students’ views and beliefs about experimental physics with those of expert experimental physicists through engagement with authentic scientific practices. We examine the impact of the transformation on women and men in the course and report the effect of this transformation on the students’ views and beliefs using the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey for Experimental Physics (E-CLASS) as a measurement tool. We analyze over 3000 student responses from both before and after the transformation for both women and men on overall E-CLASS scores, as well as item-by-item. The results show statistically significant increase in the overall average E-CLASS score after the transformation as compared to that of the course before the transformation regardless of gender. In addition, item-by-item analysis indicates that there are larger gains in a few E-CLASS items, especially those related to the new course learning goals and some of these items are different for women and men. Our results show that students can have different lab experiences depending on their identity, an important aspect that should to be taken into account when designing educational interventions.Received 4 May 2022Revised 9 November 2022Accepted 16 December 2022DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.19.010116Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasEpistemology, attitudes, & beliefsInstructional strategiesLearning environmentPhysics Education Research

Metacognitive regulation in organic chemistry students: how and why students use metacognitive strategies when predicting reactivity

Problem solving is a key component of authentic scientific research and practice in organic chemistry. One factor that has been shown to have a major role in successful problem solving in a variety of disciplines is metacognitive regulation, defined as the control of one's thought processes through the use of planning, monitoring, and evaluation strategies. Despite the growing interest in assessing and promoting metacognition in the field of chemical education, few studies have investigated this topic in the context of organic chemistry students. To gain a deeper understanding of how and why students make use of strategies related to metacognitive regulation in their approaches to solving problems, we conducted interviews with Organic Chemistry I, Organic Chemistry II, and graduate organic chemistry students and used multiple measures to examine students’ metacognition. As a part of these interviews, students verbalized their thoughts as they worked on complex predict-the-product problems and completed a self-report instrument indicating which planning, monitoring, and evaluation strategies they had used while completing each problem. Think-aloud protocols were analyzed for the presence of each of the behaviors included on the self-report instrument, and students’ use of metacognitive strategies was compared to identify differences between students with different levels of experience and between students who generated more and less successful solutions to the problems. Students who generated more successful solutions to the problems tended to report using a greater number of metacognitive strategies. When asked why they did or did not use certain metacognitive strategies, students indicated a number of factors, such as not feeling able to use these strategies effectively or believing that using these strategies was unnecessary. The results of this study support the importance of teaching metacognitive problem-solving strategies in organic chemistry courses and suggest several methods for the assessment and instruction of metacognition.

Formal rules and rules as reasoning-in-action: playing games with reality in science education

AbstractBonne and Higgins (2022) explore game playing and fluctuations in emotional climate at a classroom level of analysis using a social and phenomenological orientation. My aim in this forum paper is to extend upon their work by exploring the nature of both formal game rules and practical game rules as reasoning-in-action where science reasoning may be embedded. Rules as reasoning-in-action are considered from the perspective of studies of ethnomethods, which are the interactional methods people use in everyday situations to make sense of social reality. I apply these ideas to compare gamification of science learning with learning through authentic science practices by discussing similarities and differences in the way we might regard reality in game play and the application of emotions to the design of learning contexts. I suggest the need for future research to embed gamification more routinely in science teacher education, including raised awareness about emotions and aesthetics in learning science.

Introductory Physics Labs: A Tale of Two Transformations

A significant challenge physics faculty face teaching introductory labs is engaging students in authentic science practices. Another has been highlighted given the current global pandemic—how to engage students in our laboratory courses while maintaining appropriate social distancing and hygiene standards. We have chosen to answer these challenges by transforming our labs…twice. We discuss the rationale behind the first transformation to a practice-focused curriculum. In March 2020 we needed to transform our labs again, this time to accommodate online learning. This paper discusses two chief questions: “What are we doing to engage students in science practices?” and “How did we make all of this work online?”

Epistemic agency for costructuring expansive knowledge‐building practices

AbstractAs a hallmark of authentic science practices, students need to enact epistemic agency to shape/reshape the key aspects of their inquiry work as a collaborative community. This study elaborates an emergent temporal mechanism for engaging students' epistemic agency: “reflective structuration” by which members of a classroom community coconstruct ever‐evolving inquiry directions and group structures as their collective inquiry work proceeds. Using an interactional ethnography method, we examined how students (n = 22) in a Grade 5 classroom coconstructed shared inquiry directions and flexible group structures to guide their sustained inquiry about human body systems over 7 months supported by a collaborative online environment. Rich data were collected to trace the work of the eye inquiry group as a telling case. With their teacher's support, students took agentic moves to construct an evolving set of wondering areas as a way to frame what their whole class needed to investigate. Flexible groups, such as the eye inquiry group, emerged and evolved in the various areas, leading to progressively deepening inquiry and extensive idea exchanges among students. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

The Instructor's Role in a Model-Based Inquiry Laboratory: Characterizing Instructor Supports and Intentions in Teaching Authentic Scientific Practices.

Limited access to undergraduate research experiences for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics students has led to creation of classroom-based opportunities for students to participate in authentic science. Revising laboratory courses to engage students in the practices of science has been shown to have many benefits for students. However, the instructor’s role in successful implementation of authentic-inquiry curricula requires further investigation. Previous work has demonstrated that navigating an instructional role within the open-ended format of an inquiry curriculum is challenging for instructors. Little is known about effective strategies for supporting students in authentic scientific practices. To address this challenge, we investigated instructors with prior experience teaching Authentic Inquiry through Modeling in Biology (AIM-Bio) in order to reveal strategies that are likely to help students succeed in this context. We took a unique approach that uncovered how instructors supported students and how they intended to support students in the scientific practices of modeling and experimental design. Analysis included in vivo recordings of instructor–student interactions paired with instructor interviews over the course of a semester. Findings detail the ways in which instructors flexibly responded to students through their in-the-moment actions. Additionally, the instructor intentions provided crucial explanatory power to explain the rationale behind teaching choices made.

Camp Bioscience: Developing a Biology Summer Camp for Upper Elementary Students

Informal outreach programs can provide authentic science experiences for elementary school students, who may not have these experiences in formal school settings. Research indicates that students lose interest in science in middle school, so it’s important to reach them early. To address this need, we designed a summer camp focused on exposing children in 5th grade to current research projects being conducted by STEM faculty and graduate students at the university, to increase their understanding of science practices, and interest in STEM. This paper describes the outreach model focused on authentic science research projects and direct exposure to scientists and their work. We investigated the influence of participating in the camp on students’ understanding of the nature of science, and their interest in science. Data collection included pre-and post-student surveys, observation data, and artifacts. Students reported gains in understanding of authentic science practices on the surveys (p = 0.0055), while observation data exhibited a progression of learning throughout the week. Additional data were collected to monitor student engagement with the activities to improve future iterations of the camp as a summer program.

Touch‐Talk‐Text: Science Practices and Language for Reading Comprehension

AbstractElementary teachers are tasked with teaching the language and literacy strategies and skills leading to reading comprehension while also teaching disciplinary content that is the subject of texts, frequently with limited instructional time. Prior research demonstrates that an integrated approach to science and literacy instruction featuring authentic, hands‐on science experiences increases student learning. The authors have developed an instructional framework, Touch‐Talk‐Text, for elementary classrooms. This framework emphasizes student engagement in authentic science practices integrated with meaningful science discourse and connected to comprehending science‐related texts to support comprehension. The authors provide two examples of how this framework has been enacted in classrooms, one from lower elementary and one from upper elementary grades, and share strategies for how classroom teachers can implement it into their current science and literacy teaching practices.

Inquiry-Based Laboratories Using Paper Microfluidic Devices

The Making Introductory Courses Real while Online (MICRO) laboratory project was developed to meet the need for hands-on experiments, focused on topics in analytical chemistry, to be delivered safely remotely or in a socially distanced in-person lab. Unlike more traditional lab experiments, MICRO laboratories use only microgram or nanogram amounts of chemicals; paper microfluidic technology is used to store and mix reactants. Instructional materials use an inquiry-based approach and are situated in a context that highlights the human impacts of the scientific analysis. To support broader-scale implementation of the experiments and promote a shift to more inquiry-based laboratory instruction, an array of supports were developed, including adaptable instructional materials, instructional videos for lab preparation, resource guides, and an introductory workshop. A cohort of nine institutions implemented MICRO laboratories both remotely and in person during Fall 2020. Students were able to successfully complete the experiments, and the inquiry nature of the laboratories led to an increased comfort with the trial-and-error nature of authentic scientific practice. Additionally, most faculty participants indicated a commitment to an increased degree of inquiry in their laboratory pedagogy.

Redesign of an Advanced Biochemistry Laboratory into a Course‐Based Undergraduate Research Experience

In recent years, more efforts have been made to integrate authentic research experiences into undergraduate laboratory courses to improve student learning and broaden access to scientific research. However, traditional expository and limited inquiry-based laboratory courses continue to exist at the undergraduate level depriving students of the opportunity to fully engage in authentic scientific practices. Described herein is the redesign of a limited inquiry-based Advanced Biochemistry Laboratory course at a public small liberal arts college into a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) that enhances the research skills of students. By piloting course changes in a low-enrollment elective course over 3 years, the instructor was able to improve the laboratory infrastructure of the department with the purchase of two new advanced instruments to support laboratory courses and faculty research. Within this intentionally redesigned course, students created a research plan, conducted oral and poster presentations, produced a manuscript-styled laboratory report, and developed a curriculum vitae. Students also gained working knowledge of 1-3 advanced instruments during structure-function studies of a model protein.

Secondary Science Teachers’ Understandings of the Epistemic Nature of Science Practices

ABSTRACT The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) emphasize engaging students in science practices through which students can develop content, procedural, and epistemic knowledge of science. To accomplish this goal, science teachers must embed science content in authentic science practice. Successfully integrating content and practice will require significant epistemological and pedagogical shifts on the part of teachers. However, teachers cannot meaningfully achieve this integration if they, themselves, do not understand the epistemic underpinnings of the science practices. Given the lack of literature specifically addressing teachers’ epistemic understanding of science practices, we conducted a qualitative study to fill this gap in the literature. Data were collected using an open-ended online survey, and responses from 128 science teachers were analyzed using the constant comparative method. Our results indicate that relatively few teachers exhibited more nuanced epistemic understandings of scientific practice that extend beyond the rigid, linear scientific method presented in science textbooks. Teachers broadly believed that scientific inquiry must begin with a question, seldom cite methodological differences when comparing two experiments, frequently viewed models as teaching tools for representations and explanation, and hardly discussed computational thinking in terms beyond data analysis. More importantly, teachers viewed that scientific conclusions are heavily influenced by researchers’ perceptions and biases. To enhance science teachers’ sophisticated epistemic understanding of science, we highlight the need not only to engage teachers in authentic scientific inquiry experiences, but also to provide opportunities to learn how to effectively integrate science practices as a coherent system, especially computational thinking and models, into science lessons.

A three-dimensional conceptualization of authentic inquiry-based practices: a reflective tool for science educators

ABSTRACT Authenticity is a term that has become ubiquitous within the field of science education, particularly when it relates to the practices of science. These practices are a key feature of science education reform documents in the US. However, a common definition of just what makes for the authentic doing of science is hard to come by and certainly lacks consensus. In this paper, the case will be made for a new framework building upon and updating prior conceptualizations that could be utilised by science teacher educators, science teachers, and science education researchers to classify the authentic nature of scientific work generally and that is performed in the science classroom specifically. The framework consists of three dimensions. These are the similarities between the practices that students engage in and those employed by professional scientists, the degree to which the activity is meaningful to the learner, and the extent to which the work is significant to others. Examples of classroom activities will be discussed in terms of these three dimensions. It is believed that the tools provided by this framework will have applications that will serve to encourage science teachers as they strive to implement authentic scientific practices in their classrooms.

Engaging in science practices in classrooms predicts increases in undergraduates' STEM motivation, identity, and achievement: A short‐term longitudinal study

AbstractOur short‐term longitudinal study explored undergraduate students' experiences with performing authentic science practices in the classroom in relation to their science achievement and course grades. In addition, classroom experiences (felt recognition as a scientist and perceived classroom climate) and changes over a 10‐week academic term in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) identity and motivation were tested as mediators. The sample comprised 1,079 undergraduate students from introductory biology classrooms (65.4% women, 37.6% Asian, 30.2% White, 25.1% Latinx). Using structural equation modeling (SEM), our hypothesized model was confirmed while controlling for class size and GPA. Performing science practices (e.g., hypothesizing or explaining results) positively predicted students' felt recognition as a scientist; and felt recognition positively predicted perceived classroom climate. In turn, felt recognition and classroom climate predicted increases over time in students' STEM motivation (expectancy‐value beliefs), STEM identity, and STEM career aspirations. Finally, these factors predicted students' course grade. Both recognition as a scientist and positive classroom climate were more strongly related to outcomes among underrepresented minority (URM) students. Findings have implications for why large‐format courses that emphasize opportunities for students to learn science practices are related to positive STEM outcomes, as well as why they may prove especially helpful for URM students. Practical implications include the importance of recognition as a scientist from professors, teaching assistants, and classmates in addition to curriculum that engages students in the authentic practices of science.

Becoming an Author: Engaging High School Students in Disciplinary Practices

AbstractIt is generally considered that students who want to become scientists engage in scientific practices as university students, particularly when pursuing postgraduate studies. However, schools and teachers can help students participate in authentic scientific and disciplinary practices, such as data sampling and analysis, in high school. The authors explore the case of a Mexican high school student whose experience in becoming a published scientific author was afforded through the synergy of different factors, such as a specific school’s curriculum, a teacher’s pedagogy based on his real experience as a scientist, and an institutional context that favors scientific endeavors. The findings are discussed based on Moje’s framework of common disciplinary practices and Knorr‐Cetina’s definition of habitual and epistemic practices.