Biology Coursework Research Articles

Evaluating the Impact of Educational Videos on Vaccine Science Knowledge Among Virginia High School Students

ABSTRACT Background Despite the overwhelming benefits of vaccinations, suboptimal public confidence in vaccines keeps immunization rates in the U.S far from ideal levels. Purpose To assess the efficacy of a high school video set curriculum, on vaccine history, science, and safety, in improving vaccine knowledge. Methods Sample included high school students in Virginia, who had completed required biology coursework. After being assigned to either the control or experimental group, their knowledge on vaccines was assessed before and after viewing the curriculum videos. Results Experimental group students showed greater knowledge increases after viewing the videos. Examined by individual question, twelve out of eighteen questions in the experimental group had significant improvement in accuracy/knowledge, compared to one out of eighteen among the controls. Discussion Our study demonstrates the value of using videos to convey vaccine-related knowledge to high schoolers. This knowledge can favorably impact rates of acute infectious disease as well as chronic conditions such as polio, cervical cancer, and long COVID syndrome. Translation to Health Education Practice Such educational videos may be integrated into the state curricula so high school students can understand the impact, safety, and efficacy of vaccines and make informed public health decisions as adults.

Teaching at the intersection of science and society: An activity on healthcare disparities.

Understanding the relationship between science and society is an objective of science education and is included as a core competency in the AAAS Vision and Change guidelines for biology education. However, traditional undergraduate biology instruction emphasizes scientific practice and generally avoids potentially controversial issues at the intersection of biology and society. By including these topics in biology coursework, instructors can challenge damaging ideologies and systemic inequalities that have influenced science, such as biological essentialism and health disparities. Specifically, an ideologically aware curriculum highlights how ideologies and paradigms shape our biological knowledge base and the application of that knowledge. Ideologically aware lessons emphasize the relationship between science and society with an aim to create more transparent, scientifically accurate, and inclusive postsecondary biology classrooms. Here we expand upon our ideologically aware curriculum with a new activity that challenges undergraduate biology students to consider the impacts of healthcare disparities. This lesson allows instructors to directly address systemic inequalities and allows students to connect biomedical sciences to real-world issues. Implementing an ideologically aware curriculum enables students to challenge prevailing worldviews and better address societal problems that lead to exclusion and oppression.

A gut microbiome tactile teaching tool and guided-inquiry activity promotes student learning.

The gut microbiome and its physiological impacts on human and animal health is an area of research emphasis. Microbes themselves are invisible and may therefore be abstract and challenging to understand. It is therefore important to infuse this topic into undergraduate curricula, including Anatomy and Physiology courses, ideally through an active learning approach. To accomplish this, we developed a novel tactile teaching tool with guided-inquiry (TTT-GI) activity where students explored how the gut microbiome ferments carbohydrates to produce short chain fatty acids (SCFAs). This activity was implemented in two sections of a large-enrollment Human Anatomy and Physiology course at a research intensive (R1) university in the Spring of 2022 that was taught using a hyflex format. Students who attended class in person used commonly available building toys to assemble representative carbohydrates of varying structural complexity, whereas students who attended class virtually made these carbohydrate structures using a digital learning tool. Students then predicted how microbes within the gut would ferment different carbohydrates into SCFAs, as well as the physiological implications of the SCFAs. We assessed this activity to address three research questions, with 182 students comprising our sample. First, we evaluated if the activity learning objectives were achieved through implementation of a pre-and post-assessment schema. Our results revealed that all three learning objectives of this activity were attained. Next, we evaluated if the format in which this TTT-GI activity was implemented impacted student learning. While we found minimal and nonsignificant differences in student learning between those who attended in-person and those who attended remotely, we did find significant differences between the two course sections, which differed in length and spacing of the activity. Finally, we evaluated if this TTT-GI approach was impactful for diverse students. We observed modest and nonsignificant positive learning gains for some populations of students traditionally underrepresented in STEM (first-generation students and students with one or more disabilities). That said, we found that the greatest learning gains associated with this TTT-GI activity were observed in students who had taken previous upper-level biology coursework.

Self-Explaining Photosynthesis to Achieve Conceptual Change: An Analysis of Explanation Content

Students enter biology coursework with various misconceptions needing revision. However, achieving conceptual change of these misconceptions in the classroom is notoriously difficult and requires specific instruction. Self-explanations can promote conceptual change, but their effects can depend on the content produced. This study investigates how the content of learners’ explanations of photosynthesis processes affects learning. We examined data from an online assignment in introductory biology where 118 college undergraduates answered multiple-choice questions related to commonly misconceived processes in photosynthesis and respiration and were then prompted to self-explain the correct answer. One week later, students took a test that measured learning in the activity. Using mixed methods analyses, we qualitatively explored the types of explanations learners made, categorized the different types of explanations, and performed quantitative analyses to examine relations between explanation content and test scores. We identified five categories of self-explanations that varied in engagement, accuracy, and focus. Accuracy of the explanation mattered; accurate explanations predicted higher test scores, and inaccurate explanations predicted lower test scores. We also identified three different groups of learners: highly performing learners who were actively engaged and accurate; moderately performing learners who were engaged but often paraphrased or explained inaccurately; and low performing learners who were disengaged and avoided explaining. We provide implications for use of self-explaining misconceived material.

Eight Recommendations to Promote Effective Study Habits for Biology Students Enrolled in Online Courses.

ABSTRACTTo achieve meaningful learning experiences in online classrooms, students must become self-regulated learners through the development of effective study habits. Currently, there is no set of recommendations to promote study habits in online biology learning environments. To fill gaps in our understanding, a working group associated with a research coordination network (Equity and Diversity in Undergraduate STEM, EDU-STEM) convened virtually in June 2021. We identify student barriers to self-regulated learning in online environments and present eight practical recommendations to help biology educators and biology education researchers apply and advance evidence-based study habits in online courses. As higher education institutions continue to offer online learning opportunities, we hope this essay equips instructors with the knowledge and tools to promote student success in online biology coursework.

Development of a Tool to Assess Inference-Making and Reasoning in Biology.

ABSTRACTMaking inferences and reasoning with new scientific information is critical for successful performance in biology coursework. Thus, identifying students who are weak in these skills could allow the early provision of additional support and course placement recommendations to help students develop their reasoning abilities, leading to better performance and less attrition within biology courses. Researchers across universities partnered to develop a measure to assess students’ inference-making abilities in biology. We describe the development of the inference-making and reasoning in biology assessment (IMRB). The IMRB is a 15-item multiple-choice assessment that uses short paragraphs of content—from the most-used textbook—taught at the end of a semester of survey biology courses designed for science majors. Based on our research, when the IMRB is conducted at the beginning of a semester, it measures deductive reasoning with new biology information, is fair across various student groups, and is reliable. The IMRB can be used with or without SAT or ACT scores to place students into regular undergraduate introductory biology courses, to predict grades in such courses, and/or to identify students who may need extra support or remediation in reasoning with new biology information. The IMRB is available free of charge to interested faculty and researchers.

Analysis of a COVID-19 Clinical Trial to Emphasize Experimental Design and Quantitative Reasoning in an Introductory Biology Course.

Increasing student exposure to primary literature in early biology coursework can enhance scientific literacy and quantitative reasoning skills. The efficacy of primary literature discussion is heavily impacted by article selection, as student engagement is optimal with material that is topical and has clear relevance to real world issues. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the prevalence of COVID-19–related scientific research in the mainstream media makes it an ideal topic for current discussion in entry-level biology courses. Here, we present an activity developed to facilitate a remote, synchronous discussion of an open access clinical trial publication on the experimental drug remdesivir in the treatment of COVID-19 (Beigel et al., 2020, N Engl J Med https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmoa2007764). The activity, which is amenable to adaptation for other research articles, emphasizes concepts in experimental design, statistical analysis, graphical interpretation, and the structure, content, and organization of typical sections of a primary research article. Importantly, the activity highlights the utility of the classroom response tool Pear Deck, a Google Slides add-on, for creating engaging literature discussions that can be readily adapted to a wide variety of teaching modalities.

Conservation biology education at small liberal arts colleges: An opportunity for growth

AbstractUndergraduate education is a critical period for recruiting the next generation of conservation biologists and engaging a broader community of conservationists. As small liberal arts colleges (SLACs) can be particularly effective at meeting these goals, promoting conservation biology education at these institutions is essential. In this study, we paired a web review and e‐mail questionnaire (46 respondents) to assess conservation biology coursework and faculty expertise at the top 100 SLACs in the United States. Our results highlight that there is very strong student interest in conservation biology coursework, and that maintaining faculty expertise in the discipline is a priority for those departments that currently have it. Nonetheless, 40% of these institutions lack faculty expertise and 26% lack any coursework in the discipline. Embracing this opportunity for growth will require engaging the broader educational community, with the goal of expanding faculty expertise, coursework, and general access to education in conservation biology.

An instructional definition and assessment rubric for bioinformatics instruction.

The lack of an instructional definition of bioinformatics delays its effective integration into biology coursework. Using an iterative process, our team of biologists, a mathematician/computer scientist, and a bioinformatician together with an educational evaluation and assessment specialist, developed an instructional definition of the discipline: Bioinformatics is "an interdisciplinary field that is concerned with the development and application of algorithms that analyze biological data to investigate the structure and function of biological polymers and their relationships to living systems." The field is defined in terms of its two primary foundational disciplines, biology and computer science, and its interdisciplinary nature. At the same time, we also created a rubric for assessing open-ended responses to a prompt about what bioinformatics is and how it is used. The rubric has been shown to be reliable in successive rounds of testing using both common percent agreement (89.7%) and intraclass correlation coefficient (0.620) calculations. We offer the definition and rubric to life sciences instructors to help further integrate bioinformatics into biology instruction, as well as for fostering further educational research projects.

Building Bridges: The Biochemistry Major at Albion College

We present here our planning, implementation, outcomes, and future directions for the biochemistry major, with a focus on lessons learned and what works. The Albion College Biochemistry Major has been developed over the past eighteen years in the context of significant changes in the institution's vision and curriculum. The original initiative was founded on establishing vital student‐faculty collaborative research in biochemistry and molecular biology as part of a campus wide undergraduate research and scholarship program. Undergraduate biochemistry research at Albion was supported by a college commitment to new laboratory facilities and equipment that would house both the summer undergraduate research program as well as laboratory courses for all students that emphasized active learning, experimental design, and research methodology. The framework for the course curriculum was initially based upon guidelines developed by Boyer and Zimmerman in 1992, which they later updated and disseminated in 2003. Our biochemistry curriculum emphasizes core concept driven modules, which can evolve to reflect the ever‐changing landscape of biochemistry and molecular biology (Vision and Change, 2009.) The biochemistry major is designed and implemented by two faculty FTE's within the chemistry department with expertise in biological chemistry and chemical biology. Albion faculty have worked to adapt this model by utilizing the strengths and talents of chemistry and biology faculty, and serving the needs and interests of our students. Our formal laboratory experiences engage students with current methods, instrumentation and research problems in preparation for professional, graduate and clinical careers (Caldwell et al., 2004.) Critical to the success of the program is the collaboration with faculty in the biology department. This includes colleagues that provide molecular biology, bioinformatics, physiology, microbiology, immunology and cell biology coursework and research opportunities to biochemistry students. The biochemistry and molecular biology curriculum has adapted to and evolved with curricular reforms in the chemistry and biology departments along with institutional efforts for pre‐clinical students. The chemistry department is currently planning and revising the core curriculum, which we will begin to implement in the fall of 2019. This new curriculum is designed to improve student success for both biochemistry majors along with all Albion College STEM students.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

A closer look at the items within three measures of evolution acceptance: analysis of the MATE, I-SEA, and GAENE as a single corpus of items

BackgroundCurrent direct Likert measures for evolution acceptance include the MATE, GAENE, and I-SEA. Pros and cons of each of these instruments have been debated, and yet there is a dearth of research teasing out their similarities and differences when they are used together in a single context beyond the fact that their measures tend to be highly correlated. We administered these to 452 college students in non-major biology classes at two research-intensive universities from the Midwestern and Western United States to investigate the measurement properties of the items within these instruments when combined as a single corpus.ResultsFactor analysis using exploratory and confirmatory methods, and Rasch analyses, suggested that a two-dimensional factor structure best describes the corpus of items. Whether the item was positively or negatively worded was the key delimiter in its factor assignment. Examination of the highest loading items on the respective factors indicates that the first factor measures acceptance of the truth of evolution and the second factor measures rejection of incredible ideas about evolution. The correlation of these two factors is 0.73, indicating that they share 53% of their variance with each other. When treated unidimensionally, eleven items exhibited potential misfit with the Rasch model. This number dropped to nine items when the two factors were considered. These items, and implications for future use of the MATE, GAENE, and I-SEA together, are discussed in detail.ConclusionsThis study is the first analysis of the MATE, GAENE, and I-SEA as a single corpus of items, and yet corroborates previous work showing that these instruments yield measures with highly similar quantitative interpretations. This study also corroborates the effect of negative item wording on how college students interpret the item. While this finding can be applied to college-level students taking undergraduate non-majors biology coursework, work with more advanced biology students has demonstrated that this apparent item wording effect tends to disappear as students advance and become more accepting of evolution. We conclude that despite apparent epistemological differences between the MATE, GAENE, and I-SEA, these can be treated as a single set of items measuring a single factor or two factors without significant loss of quantitative interpretability.

Assessment of Genetics Understanding

Understanding how situational features of assessment tasks impact reasoning is important for many educational pursuits, notably the selection of curricular examples to illustrate phenomena, the design of formative and summative assessment items, and determination of whether instruction has fostered the development of abstract schemas divorced from particular instances. The goal of our study was to employ an experimental research design to quantify the degree to which situational features impact inferences about participants’ understanding of Mendelian genetics. Two participant samples from different educational levels and cultural backgrounds (high school, n = 480; university, n = 444; Germany and USA) were used to test for context effects. A multi-matrix test design was employed, and item packets differing in situational features (e.g., plant, animal, human, fictitious) were randomly distributed to participants in the two samples. Rasch analyses of participant scores from both samples produced good item fit, person reliability, and item reliability and indicated that the university sample displayed stronger performance on the items compared to the high school sample. We found, surprisingly, that in both samples, no significant differences in performance occurred among the animal, plant, and human item contexts, or between the fictitious and “real” item contexts. In the university sample, we were also able to test for differences in performance between genders, among ethnic groups, and by prior biology coursework. None of these factors had a meaningful impact upon performance or context effects. Thus some, but not all, types of genetics problem solving or item formats are impacted by situational features.

Assessing Writing in Undergraduate Biology Coursework: A Review of the Literature of Practices and Criteria

Assessing Writing in Undergraduate Biology Coursework: A Review of the Literature of Practices and Criteria

Vittaria appalachiana continues to provide insight into the biology of ferns: A commentary on two studies recently published in American Journal of Botany.

Vittaria appalachiana continues to provide insight into the biology of ferns: A commentary on two studies recently published in American Journal of Botany.

The Relationship between Biology Classes and Biological Reasoning and Common Heath Misconceptions

This study investigates the relationship among (1) college major, (2) knowledge used in reasoning about common health beliefs, and (3) judgment about the accuracy of those beliefs. Seventy-four college students, advanced biology and non– science majors, indicated their agreement or disagreement with commonly believed, but often inaccurate, statements about health and explained their reasoning. The results indicated that while the direct impact of college-level biology coursework on judgment accuracy was minimal, biology major was associated with increased reliance on advanced biological reasoning, which mediated judgment accuracy. However, the overall association of advanced biological reasoning with judgment accuracy was small. The discussion calls for strengthening the science–daily life connection in biology education for majors and nonmajors.

Integrating Fundamental Science and Engineering Concepts into a Civil Engineering Sustainability Course

Integrating Fundamental Science and Engineering Concepts into a Civil Engineering Sustainability Course

Problems with DNA

A modified version of this project was used during the final seven days of a year-long calculus sequence at the United States Military Academy to introduce students to the nature of integrative learning. Students from different majors were brought together in groups and spent the first few days going over the mathematics material presented here. They then spent a day separated into their respective departments to learn how their chosen fields viewed and contributed to issues related to DNA and gene technologies. Afterwards, the students reconvened in their groups to develop and give presentations advising a hypothetical candidate for public office on the many diverse viewpoints associated with this topic. While the coursework in calculus is essential for this project as presented here, some level of biology coursework will also greatly assist student understanding. In the absence of biology coursework, additional reading material can be provided to introduce the relevant concepts.

Infusing Authentic Inquiry into Biotechnology

Societal benefit depends on the general public’s understandings of biotechnology (Betsch in World J Microbiol Biotechnol 12:439–443, 1996; Dawson and Cowan in Int J Sci Educ 25(1):57–69, 2003; Schiller in Business Review: Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia (Fourth Quarter), 2002; Smith and Emmeluth in Am Biol Teach 64(2):93–99, 2002). A National Science Foundation funded survey of high school biology teachers reported that hands-on biotechnology education exists in advanced high school biology in the United States, but is non-existent in mainstream biology coursework (Micklos et al. in Biotechnology labs in American high schools, 1998). The majority of pre-service teacher content preparation courses do not teach students appropriate content knowledge through the process of inquiry. A broad continuum exists when discussing inquiry-oriented student investigations (Hanegan et al. in School Sci Math J 109(2):110–134, 2009). Depending on the amount of structure in teacher lessons, inquiries can often be categorized as guided or open. The lesson can be further categorized as simple or authentic (Chinn and Malhotra in Sci Educ 86(2):175–218, 2002). Although authentic inquiries provide the best opportunities for cognitive development and scientific reasoning, guided and simple inquiries are more often employed in the classroom (Crawford in J Res Sci Teach 37(9):916–937, 2000; NRC in Inquiry and the national science education standards: a guide for teaching and learning, 2000). For the purposes of this study we defined inquiry as “authentic” if original research problems were resolved (Hanegan et al. in School Sci Math J 109(2):110–134, 2009; Chinn and Malhotra in Sci Educ 86(2):175–218, 2002; Roth in Authentic school science: knowing and learning in open-inquiry science laboratories, 1995). The research question to guide this study through naturalistic inquiry research methods was: How will participants express whether or not an authentic inquiry experience enhanced their understanding of biotechnology? As respondents explored numerous ideas in order to develop a workable research question, struggled to create a viable protocol, executed their experiment, and then evaluated their results, they commented on unexpected topics regarding the nature of science as well as specific content knowledge relating to their experiments. Four out of five participants reported they learned the most during authentic inquiry laboratory experience.

Digging deep: Exploring college students' knowledge of macroevolutionary time

AbstractSome ability to comprehend deep time is a prerequisite for understanding macroevolution. This study examines students' knowledge of deep time in the context of seven major historical and evolutionary events (e.g., the age of the Earth, the emergence of life, the appearance of a pre‐modern human, Homo habilis). The subjects were 126 students recruited from psychology, education, and biology classes at two universities. They were assigned to stronger and weaker background groups based on their college‐level biology coursework. Subjects provided startlingly large time ranges for all questions, ranging over several orders of magnitude (e.g., from 1,000 to 600 billion years ago for when most dinosaurs became extinct), coupled with the strong tendency to underestimate how long ago the events occurred. Converting absolute time estimates to relative time estimates allowed subjects' knowledge of the spacing of the events to be examined and also provided a clearer picture of their patterns of over and underestimation. The results of this study suggest that many students are without an effective conceptual framework to make sense of very large time frames. Although there were no consistent differences in the accuracy of students' responses as a function of their biology background, the weaker background students showed greater variability, providing more time estimates at both the low and high extremes. We describe a pedagogical strategy that uses a relative approach presenting major evolutionary events as they unfolded in time and advocate a tool from professional practice to depict events in time and space. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 311–332, 2009