Introductory Science Courses Research Articles

Energy Connections and Misconnections across Chemistry and Biology.

Despite the number of university students who take courses in multiple science disciplines, little is known about how they connect concepts between disciplines. Energy is a concept that underlies all scientific phenomena and, as such, provides an appropriate context in which to investigate student connections and misconnections across disciplines. In this study, university students concurrently enrolled in introductory chemistry and biology were interviewed to explore their perceptions of the integration of energy both within and across the disciplines, and how they attempted to accommodate and reconcile different disciplinary approaches to energy, to inform future, interdisciplinary course reform. Findings suggest that, while students believed energy to be important to the scientific world and to the disciplines of biology and chemistry, the extent to which it was seen as central to success in their courses varied. Differences were also apparent in students' descriptions of the molecular-level mechanisms by which energy transfer occurs. These findings reveal a disconnect between how energy is understood and used in introductory science course work and uncovers opportunities to make stronger connections across the disciplines. We recommend that instructors engage in interdisciplinary conversations and consider the perspectives and goals of other disciplines when teaching introductory science courses.

Does Context Matter? Convergent and Divergent Findings in the Cross-Institutional Evaluation of Graduate Teaching Assistant Professional Development Programs.

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) play important instructional roles in introductory science courses, yet they often have little training in pedagogy. The most common form of teaching professional development (PD) for GTAs is a presemester workshop held at the course, department, or college level. In this study, we compare the effectiveness of presemester workshops at three northeastern research universities, each of which incorporated scientific teaching as the pedagogical content framework. The comparison of GTA PD program outcomes at three different institutions is intended to test theoretical assertions about the key role of contextual factors in GTA PD efficacy. Pretest and posttest surveys were used to assess changes in GTA teaching self-efficacy and anxiety following the workshops, and an objective test was used to assess pedagogical knowledge. Analysis of pretest/posttest data revealed statistically significant gains in GTA teaching self-efficacy and pedagogical knowledge and reductions in teaching anxiety across sites. Changes in teaching anxiety and self-efficacy, but notpedagogical knowledge, differed by training program. Student ratings of GTAs at two sites showed that students had positive perceptions of GTAs in all teaching dimensions, and relatively small differences in student ratings of GTAs were observed between institutions. Divergent findings for some outcome variables suggest that program efficacy was influenced as hypothesized by contextual factors such as GTA teaching experience.

Role playing a city's response to climate change: Engaging undergraduate geoscience students

ABSTRACTA clear understanding of climate change and its impacts on society is an integral component of scientific literacy today. However, college students in introductory and lower division science courses often struggle to connect with this material in a meaningful way when they do not see how it is relevant to their daily lives. To address this challenge, we have developed a role-playing game in which students act out a fictitious meeting of the Seattle City Council in which they select an action plan in response to impending sea-level rise. They are given roles and form factions to develop proposals, lobbying for either climate change prevention, mitigation, or adaptation. Students focus on using scientific literature and evidence to support their arguments and work as teams to get their action plans approved by the city council. The game takes approximately two class periods, during which the teams research and prepare action plans, the council hears proposals and questions the lobbying citizens, and an action plan is selected. Quantitative and qualitative data from introductory Earth and atmospheric science courses demonstrate improved learning outcomes for game-relevant course content and student perceptions of increased learning.

How students reason about visualizations from large professionally collected data sets: A study of students approaching the threshold of data proficiency

ABSTRACTThis study identifies a population of students who have an intermediate amount of relevant content knowledge and skill for working with data, and characterizes their approach to interpreting a challenging data-based visualization. Thirty-three undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory environmental science course reasoned about salinity data as shown in map and vertical profiles from the Mediterranean while thinking aloud and being eye-tracked. Students reasoned about 2D and 3D interpretations in the context of two hypothesis arrays (a suite of potential interpretations about a set of data). Findings suggest the students have some effective strategies in reading data: They look at cartographic elements, correctly identify the image as a salinity map, and draw inferences from the data. Common looking strategies include scanning along the salinity gradient, comparing areas of interest, and aligning the color bar with the map. Individual differences emerge in the interpretation of the data, with no interpretations being fully aligned with the scientifically normative explanation. Post hoc analyses identify reasoning tasks and spontaneous behaviors related to a construct we refer to as “data expertise,” which is intended to capture the degree of conceptual sophistication and resourcefulness in reasoning about data. A data expertise scale was developed, with scores ranging from zero (weak) to six (strong) that were normally distributed. Our findings suggest that appropriately coordinating data with a model, comparing and contrasting across data representations from different times or places, and extracting 3D structure from 2D representations are associated with data expertise.

Effectiveness of a Low-Cost, Graduate Student-Led Intervention on Study Habits and Performance in Introductory Biology.

Institutions have developed diverse approaches that vary in effectiveness and cost to improve student performance in introductory science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses. We developed a low-cost, graduate student-led, metacognition-based study skills course taught in conjunction with the introductory biology series at Miami University. Our approach aimed to improve performance for underachieving students by combining an existing framework for the process of learning (the study cycle) with concrete tools (outlines and concept maps) that have been shown to encourage deep understanding. To assess the effectiveness of our efforts, we asked 1) how effective our voluntary recruitment model was at enrolling the target cohort, 2) how the course impacted performance on lecture exams, 3) how the course impacted study habits and techniques, and 4) whether there are particular study habits or techniques that are associated with large improvements on exam scores. Voluntary recruitment attracted only 11-17% of our target cohort. While focal students improved on lecture exams relative to their peers who did not enroll, gains were relatively modest, and not all students improved. Further, although students across both semesters of our study reported improved study habits (based on pre and post surveys) and on outlines and concept maps (based on retrospectively scored assignments), gains were more dramatic in the Fall semester. Multivariate models revealed that, while changes in study habits and in the quality of outlines and concept maps were weakly associated with change in performance on lecture exams, relationships were only significant in the Fall semester and were sometimes counterintuitive. Although benefits of the course were offset somewhat by the inefficiency of voluntary recruitment, we demonstrate the effectiveness our course, which is inexpensive to implement and has advantage of providing pedagogical experience to future educators.

Changing Student Conceptions of Arid, Urban Watershed Management

AbstractDespite the central importance of water, few students have the opportunity to study water resources management in secondary education. Even in tertiary education—unless they major in water resources or a closely related field—they are likely to receive only a week or two of instruction about water resources in introductory science courses. Typical instruction in such courses is textbook‐based, with the course instructor lecturing on a broad range of topics. Complicating this, little is known about student preconceptions, which may interfere with—or be used to support—learning. We sought to identify preconceptions in an introductory environmental science course at an urban, research (R1) university in the arid Southwest of the United States. We used a pre/post design to assess student preconceptions about their urban campus watershed and designed a brief, experiential learning exercise. While experiential learning is common in water resources management programs, it is less common in introductory courses. We developed a coding scheme to analyze the pre‐ and post‐test responses; results showed students held normative and non‐normative preconceptions. There was significant growth in students’ conceptual understanding between the pre‐test and post‐test, (t(33) = −2.25, p < .05), with a small to medium effect size, d = −0.393. This finding supports the use of experiential learning as a means to teach students about water resources, even in an introductory course. Understanding students’ preconceptions of arid, urban watersheds can assist in how to better design curriculum. Such improvements in curricular design can empower students to make better decisions about urban watersheds.

724 Methods of daily student engagement in an introductory level animal science course

724 Methods of daily student engagement in an introductory level animal science course

How Should I Study for the Exam? Self-Regulated Learning Strategies and Achievement in Introductory Biology.

In college introductory science courses, students are challenged with mastering large amounts of disciplinary content while developing as autonomous and effective learners. Self-regulated learning (SRL) is the process of setting learning goals, monitoring progress toward them, and applying appropriate study strategies. SRL characterizes successful, "expert" learners, and develops with time and practice. In a large, undergraduate introductory biology course, we investigated: 1) what SRL strategies students reported using the most when studying for exams, 2) which strategies were associated with higher achievement and with grade improvement on exams, and 3) what study approaches students proposed to use for future exams. Higher-achieving students, and students whose exam grades improved in the first half of the semester, reported using specific cognitive and metacognitive strategies significantly more frequently than their lower-achieving peers. Lower-achieving students more frequently reported that they did not implement their planned strategies or, if they did, still did not improve their outcomes. These results suggest that many students entering introductory biology have limited knowledge of SRL strategies and/or limited ability to implement them, which can impact their achievement. Course-specific interventions that promote SRL development should be considered as integral pedagogical tools, aimed at fostering development of students' lifelong learning skills.

Students’ Concept-Building Approaches: A Novel Predictor of Success in Chemistry Courses

One primary goal of many science courses is for students to learn creative problem-solving skills; that is, integrating concepts, explaining concepts in a problem context, and using concepts to solve problems. However, what science instructors see is that many students, even those having excellent SAT/ACT and Advanced Placement scores, struggle in the introductory science courses. As faculty work to adopt more evidence-based teaching methods, the question arises of how to determine early on who may have difficulty in these introductory courses. Recent basic cognitive science research suggests that there are individual differences in how learners approach conceptual tasks: some learners tend toward rote concept-learning (exemplar learners), whereas other learners tend to use abstraction concept-learning. We explored the possibility that this individual difference in concept-building might have consequences for classroom learning. In the current study, using an online concept-building task, we differentiate...

How Does Adding an Emphasis on Socioscientific Issues Influence Student Attitudes About Science, Its Relevance, and Their Interpretations of Sustainability?

ABSTRACT A general consensus exists among the leaders of both developed and developing nations that their citizens should be scientifically literate. Therefore, it is important for educational systems to provide students with access to pertinent scientific knowledge, an appreciation for the scientific processes, and the ability to evaluate scientific claims. Students' attitudes toward science and its relevance can serve to nurture or impede the development of their science literacy. Some researchers have proposed that we can improve students' attitudes toward science and foster science literacy by emphasizing the connections between science and society. We sought to determine if the repeated and explicit exposure to socioscientific issues through the use of InTeGrate course materials would result in positive changes to students' attitudes about science and its relevance. We collected data on student attitudes using the revised Scientific Attitude Inventory and the Changes in Attitude about the Relevance of Science survey in a quasi-experimental design over four semesters of an introductory physical geology course. Results, although mixed, show that an emphasis of socioscientific issues can positively influence students' attitudes about science and their perceptions on the relevance of science. These findings have potential implications for the selection of content for introductory science courses, and demonstrate the utility of designing or adapting geoscience lessons based around socioscientific issues.

First-Year and Non-First-Year Student Expectations Regarding In-Class and Out-of-Class Learning Activities in Introductory Biology.

National calls for teaching transformation build on a constructivist learning theory and propose that students learn by actively engaging in course activities and interacting with other students. While interactive pedagogies can improve learning, they also have the potential to challenge traditional norms regarding class participation and learning strategies. To better understand the potential openness of students to interactive teaching practices, we administered a survey during the first week of two sections of an introductory biology course to characterize how students envisioned spending time during class as well as what activities they expected to complete outside of class during non-exam weeks and in preparation for exams. Additionally, we sought to test the hypothesis that the expectations of first-year students differed from those of non-first-year students. Analyses of closed-ended and open-ended questions revealed that students held a wide range of expectations and that most students expressed expectations consistent with some degree of transformed teaching. Furthermore, first-year students expected more active learning in class, more out-of-class coursework during non-exam weeks, and more social learning strategies than non-first-year students. We discuss how instructor awareness of incoming student expectations might be used to promote success in introductory science courses.

Difficulties encountered, learning strategies and academic performance in physics of Psychology students

Introductory physics courses have a reputation among students of being more difficult than other introductory science courses. This may be because success in physics courses requires a different approach, attitude and perspective than other science courses. Realizing the students’ perception that physics is tedious and irrelevant, the researcher was motivated to conduct the study which aimed to determine the level of difficulty in the different topics in physics, causes of difficulties in physics, frequency of use of learning strategies to overcome the difficulties encountered in physics, and academic performance in physics of the respondents. The study also determined the relationship between the respondents’ level of difficulty in physics and their frequency of use of learning strategies to overcome the difficulties encountered. It also looked into the relationship between the respondents’ frequency of use of learning strategies to overcome the difficulties encountered and their academic performance in physics. This study, which involved seventy-two (72) psychology students, utilized the descriptive-correlation research design. Findings showed that the respondents found majority of the physics topics to be difficult. The students cited that their difficulty in physics was caused by their poor background in mathematics and that they had inadequate time for studying. Listening attentively to the lectures, note-taking, and studying alone were often utilized by the respondents to overcome the difficulties encountered in physics. The respondents’ academic performance in physics was fair. The respondents’ level of difficulty in physics has no bearing on their frequency of use of learning strategies to overcome such difficulties. The more frequent the respondents took notes, listened attentively to lectures and studied alone; the better is their performance in physics.

Teaching political science with a mooc: analysing the supply side and the demand side

Massive open online courses (MOOC) have been considered by some observers as a powerful opportunity to improve distant learning. The Universite catholique de Louvain was the first Belgian university to deliver a political science MOOC (Louv3x) in French, entitled ‘Discovering political science’ (Decouvrir la science politique). This paper seeks to explore the challenges a pedagogical team faces when transforming a ‘traditional’ political science introductory course into a MOOC. The paper also explores how the use of a MOOC might impact the learning outcome within on-campus and worldwide students.

A Google Earth Grand Tour of the Terrestrial Planets

ABSTRACTGoogle Earth is a powerful instructional resource for geoscience education. We have extended the virtual globe to include all terrestrial planets. Downloadable Keyhole Markup Language (KML) files (Google Earth's scripting language) associated with this paper include lessons about Mercury, Venus, the Moon, and Mars. We created “grand tours” of these bodies, guiding students to explore atmospheres, magnetospheres, landscapes, and interiors. The tours benefited from a study of 364 students in an introductory astronomy class. We compared learning outcomes for students using Google Earth versus static portable document format (PDF) files. In pre- and immediate posttests, there were small but statistically significant (p-value < 0.05) learning gains from the use of Google Earth; however, these did not persist in a long-term follow-up. There may have been insufficient differences between viewing text and images in Google Earth placemark balloons versus identical text and images in a PDF document. Consequently, we revised our tours, adding many more three-dimensional models, draped maps, and movies. We also assembled a table of links to virtual globes for other planets and moons, and a virtual solar system model, thus building a comprehensive teaching resource for introductory lunar and planetary science courses.

Stimulating Curiosity and Engagement with Insects Beyond the College Classroom Through Citizen Science

Many professional entomologists were first introduced to the study of insects through a college biology course, yet little work has been published demonstrating effective means of stimulating curiosity and engagement with insects beyond such first exposures. At many small liberal arts colleges, a single introductory course in entomology or invertebrate biology may be all that is offered. This limitation increases a need to understand effective pedagogies that stimulate further engagement of students. Undergraduate research experiences are particularly effective at stimulating the pursuit of graduate programs in science-related fields post-graduation (Lopatto 2007). While we often perceive research experiences to be grounded behind a lab bench, course-based undergraduate research experiences can also promote continued engagement with science (reviewed in Corwin et al. 2015). However, instructors of introductory courses are often limited in time and resources, making facilitation of such experiences difficult. Thus, engagement in authentic research—one of the more effective tools for developing future scientists—is often precluded from a venue where future entomologists are likely to be birthed: the introductory college classroom. Integrating citizen science into introductory science courses may be one means of addressing this issue (Vitone et al. 2016), and can be a win-win for students, instructors, and researchers. Citizen science can be defined as “the active engagement of the public in scientific research projects to address real-world problems” (Wiggins and Crowston 2011). A slight modification of this definition is well-suited for student learning …

Quantifying the Level of Inquiry in a Reformed Introductory Geology Lab Course

ABSTRACTAs part of a campus-wide effort to transform introductory science courses to be more engaging and more accurately convey the excitement of discovery in science, the curriculum of an introductory physical geology lab course was redesigned. What had been a series of “cookbook” lab activities was transformed into a sequence of activities based on scientific inquiry and cooperative learning. The first two semesters were spent developing and implementing the new lab activities, and two more semesters were spent refining them. In the second semester of each of these two phases, students enrolled in the lab completed a 15-question version of the Geoscience Concept Inventory (GCI; Libarkin and Anderson, 2005); there were significant improvements from pretest to posttest scores. Student evaluations before and after the reform are not significantly different and overall positive. This paper presents an overview of the lab activities in the new curriculum, a detailed analysis of the type and level of inquiry in each lab, and the assessment of the impact on student learning.

Elucidating concepts in drug design through taste with natural and artificial sweeteners.

Fundamental concepts in biochemistry important for drug design often lack connection to the macroscopic world and can be difficult for students to grasp, particularly those in introductory science courses at the high school and college level. Educational research has shown that multisensory teaching facilitates learning, but teaching at the high school and college level is almost exclusively limited to the visual and auditory senses. This approach neglects the lifetime of experience our students bring to the classroom in the form of taste perception and makes our teaching less supportive of those with sensory impairment. In this article, we outline a novel guided-inquiry activity that utilizes taste perception for a series of natural and artificial sweetener solutions to introduce the concepts of substrate affinity and selectivity in the context of drug design. The findings from this study demonstrate clear gains in student knowledge, as well as an increase in enthusiasm for the fields of biochemistry and drug design. © 2016 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 44(6):550-554, 2016.

Use of Web‐logs (Blogs) to Promote Student Ownership

Blended or hybrid learning is a teaching approach in which some course elements—e.g., content delivery or discussions—occur online while other course elements occur face‐to‐face. Current best practices suggest that the digital environment can be used to guide instruction and to enhance student‐student exchange of ideas. We explore the benefits of online student interactions within an introductory science course as a means of enhancing face‐to‐face interaction and personalization of the learning experience. Weblogs (blogs) have the potential to increase contemplation, community, and collaboration within the classroom through an intimate online framework. In particular, we are interested in building student project ownership that is grounded in student interaction and builds natural learning development through “doing.” However, the effectiveness of blogs to promote ownership has not been fully examined.We investigated the potential of blogs to promote project ownership. Ownership was tested after the addition of two elements to the blog design: instructor curation of the blog and awarding a grade percentage based on student participation. We explored how these modifications alter student educational experience and project ownership. This was measured using de‐identified student data to quantitatively examined the amount of online student‐student interactions. Additionally, we qualitatively analyzed blog content, the quality of students’ final writing samples, and student perception of project ownership via a survey at the end of the semester. Our overall study goal is to develop student fluency in scientific discourse and science project ownership by constructing an online, student‐driven learning blog community. These findings will elucidate the potential for blogs to build student project ownership, driving learner engagement, and academic success.Support or Funding InformationBlended Online Learning Design Fellowship, Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning, Center for Teaching

The Use of Online Citizen-Science Projects to Provide Experiential Learning Opportunities for Nonmajor Science Students.

Citizen science is becoming even more accessible to the general public through technological advances in the development of mobile applications, facilitating information dissemination and data collection. With the advent of “big data,” many citizen-science projects designed to help researchers sift through piles of research data now exist entirely online, either in the form of playing a game or via other digital avenues. Recent trends in citizen science have also focused on “crowdsourcing” solutions from the general public to help solve societal issues, often requiring nothing more than brainstorming and a computer to submit ideas. Online citizen science thus provides an excellent platform to expand the accessibility of experiential learning opportunities for a broad range of nonmajor science students at institutions with limited resources (e.g., community colleges). I created an activity for a general microbiology lecture to engage students in hands-on experiences via participation in online citizen-science projects. The objectives of the assignment were for students to: 1) understand that everyone can be a scientist; 2) learn to be creative and innovative in designing solutions to health and science challenges; and 3) further practice science communication skills with a written report. This activity is designed for introductory science courses with nonmajor science students who have limited opportunities to participate in undergraduate research experiences.

Large Lecture Transformation: Adopting Evidence-Based Practices to Increase Student Engagement and Performance in an Introductory Science Course

ABSTRACTThis study investigated students' attitudes, engagement, satisfaction, and performance in Introduction to Environmental Science after it was transformed from a typical large lecture to a student-centered learning environment. The instructors of the course collaborated with the Office of Teaching, Learning & Technology and radically redesigned the course by adopting evidence-based pedagogical methods and instructional technology to offer a rich active learning environment. Students' engagement, satisfaction, and performance in the transformed course were compared to the students in the same course that was traditionally taught in a previous semester in order to measure the effect of the transformed course on student learning. Four self-reported surveys and a focus group interview were administered during the semester, and performance scores, prior learning data, and demographic information were collected at the end of the semester. The assessment results indicate that the students in the transformed course prepared for the class significantly more, engaged in the course significantly better, and were significantly more satisfied with the course than were the students in the traditional lecture-format course. Most of all, multiple linear regression indicates that the students in the transformed course earned, on average, about three-fourths of a letter grade higher on their final grade after controlling for cumulative grade point average. The students in the transformed course reported that online learning materials and frequent formative assessments using online quizzes were helpful in their learning, and they perceived the course was relevant to real-world applications that matter to their daily life.