Undergraduate Life Research Articles

Memory Development, Configurations, Conjunctions, and the Hippocampal Index.

When I began my career, I had no idea that much of it would center around the hippocampus. Here I discuss some of the history of how this happened. I briefly mention my early undergraduate life and the problems it posed for getting into graduate school. I describe the unique circumstances that led me to Allan Wagner's laboratory and changed my career trajectory. My path to the hippocampus began with a decision to study memory development. This led to a collaboration with Rob Sutherland that produced the configural theory of the hippocampus. The idea was that the hippocampus facilitated the construction of representations of the co-occurring stimulus elements currently experienced by the organism. Thus, if two elements, A and B, occurred together, a representation, AB, could be constructed that could be discriminated from its elements, A and B. This idea was partially correct, but we missed an important property of the hippocampal system that was recognized by O'Keefe and Nadel, 1978 that is, that the hippocampus is an unmotivated, rapid learning system. Randy O'Reilly and I addressed this issue in what we called conjunctive representation theory and put forth a detailed cortical-hippocampus computational theory to explain how this could work I later realized that our ideas were remarkably like Tim Teyler's indexing theory of how the hippocampal system supports memory. At a Park City meeting, a chance encounter with Tim (whom I had never met) resulted in the opportunity to write a paper with Tim updating the indexing theory, It is my favorite theoretical paper.

NAVIGATING LIFE'S CHALLENGES IN UNDERGRADUATES: AN IN-DEPTH EXPLORATION OF GENDER DISPARITIES IN COPING STRATEGIES AND SUCCESSES (A LITERATURE REVIEW)

This comprehensive literature review investigates gender disparities among undergraduates in Sri Lanka, exploring academic, financial, and social challenges. Despite women displaying higher enrollment, graduation rates, and academic performance, disparities extend to employment, relationships, and gender-based violence. Success stories highlight women breaking societal norms and men challenging traditional roles. The dynamic coping strategies employed underscore the necessity of ongoing support, policy changes, and societal awareness. An intersectional lens reveals unique challenges based on race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sexual orientation. The review emphasizes the urgency of interventions for gender disparities, offering insights for policymakers, educators, and institutions. The subsequent examination of undergraduate life in Sri Lanka delves into academic pressure, financial hardships, limited support services, job prospects, and social issues. Gender-specific challenges demonstrate how societal expectations shape women's and men's experiences in higher education. The coping strategies section categorizes mechanisms and explores gender-specific ones, indicating potential disparities influenced by societal expectations. Factors affecting coping strategies, such as the work environment and social support, are discussed. The impact of coping strategies on academic success is analyzed, highlighting the symbiotic relationship between effective coping mechanisms and positive outcomes. The review concludes by outlining future research directions, advocating for an intersectionality perspective, longitudinal studies, and a focus on mental health's role in academic success. Implications for policy and practice stress the need for inclusive support services, faculty training programs, and initiatives promoting mental health awareness to create a supportive environment for all undergraduates.

PULSE Ambassadors program: empowering departments to transform STEM education for inclusion and student success.

The Partnership for Undergraduate Life Sciences Education (PULSE) is a non-profit educational organization committed to promoting the transformation of undergraduate STEM education by supporting departments in removing barriers to access, equity, and inclusion and in adopting evidence-based teaching and learning practices. The PULSE Ambassadors Campus Workshop program enables faculty and staff members of host departments to 1) develop communication, shared leadership, and inclusion skills for effective team learning; 2) implement facilitative leadership skills (e.g., empathic listening and collaboration); 3) create a shared vision and departmental action plan; and 4) integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion practices in the department and curriculum. From the first workshop in 2014, teams of trained Ambassadors conducted workshops at 58 institutions, including associate, bachelor, master, and doctoral institutions. In their workshop requests, departments cited several motivations: desire to revise and align their curriculum with Vision and Change recommendations, need for assistance with ongoing curricular reform, and wish for external assistance with planning processes and communication. Formative assessments during and immediately following workshops indicated that key outcomes were met. Post-workshop interviews of four departments confirm progress achieved on action items and development of individual department members as agents of change. The PULSE Ambassadors program continues to engage departments to improve undergraduate STEM education and prepare departments for the challenges and uncertainties of the changing higher education landscape.

Using a 'Students as Partners' model to develop an authentic assessment promoting employability skills in undergraduate life science education.

Authentic assessments (AA) include three principles, realism, cognitive challenge, and evaluative judgment, and replicate professional workplace expectations. Developing AA in undergraduate life science education is necessary to promote critical skill development and adequately prepare students for the workplace. Using a 'Students-as-Partners' (SAP) approach, five students, an educational developer and the instructor codeveloped an AA requiring students to utilize scientific literacy (SL) and critical thinking (CT) skills to develop a data extraction table and generate communication outputs for scientific and nonscientific audiences. Subsequently, the SAP-developed AA was completed by students (n = 173) enrolled in a fourth-year life sciences and pathophysiology course who completed an online survey providing feedback about their perceived development of critical skills and the relevance of the assignment to the workplace. The top transferable skills students reported the greatest growth in were SL (41.6%, n = 72), communication (34.7%, n = 60), CT (16.2%, n = 28), and problem-solving (7.5%, n = 13). Student self-assessed and instructor-assessed grades were positively correlated, wherein 60.6% of students assessed their AA grades below the instructor's assessment and 4.7% of students assigned themselves the same grade as the instructor. Students' perceived stress levels were (a)negatively correlated with assignment grades and feelings of enjoyment, hope and pride, and (b) positively correlated with feelings of anger, anxiety, shame, and hopelessness while working on the assignment. This study demonstrates the impact of AA on the student learning experience and the relevance of AA to help prepare students for life science careers.

Elevating Marginalized Student Experiences of Belonging in the Life Sciences: A Qualitative Case Study Approach.

College students with identities traditionally marginalized in scientific disciplines are more engaged and more likely to remain in science if they feel that they belong in their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) classes and departments. In this qualitative case study, we elevated marginalized student voices to learn how departmental experiences shaped their sense of belonging in curricular and co-curricular spaces. Our research team interviewed 27 undergraduate life science students at a large predominantly white, research-intensive university. Participants reflected on their lived experiences and feelings of belonging within a biology department and shared their perceptions of departmental efforts related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Three themes emerged as being of value to undergraduate students while they navigated the sciences: 1) implementing inclusive pedagogies, 2) providing co-curricular resources and support, and 3) humanizing life sciences education. These stories illuminated the importance of authenticity and intentionality in the implementation of strategies related to these three themes. This study provides an example of the power of centering marginalized students' lived experiences to identify strategies that can be employed more broadly to improve our courses, our departmental cultures, and our institutional policies-strategies essential to supporting students with a diversity of identities in engaging, belonging, and persisting in STEM.

A Model for Emotional Intelligence in Biology Education Research.

Informed by social science fields including psychology and public health, we propose a Model for Emotional Intelligence to advance biology education research in affective learning. The model offers a shared discourse for biology education researchers to develop and assess evidence-based strategies to perceive, use, understand, and manage emotions for students and instructors in life sciences classrooms. We begin by reviewing the connection between stress, emotional invalidation, Sense of Belonging, and Science Identity as it relates to emotions in undergraduate life sciences classrooms. Next, we highlight the impact that emotionally invalidating classroom environments have on science students' development of psychological distress, maladaptive coping, and high-risk behaviors. Assuming Emotional Intelligence can be taught and learned (i.e., the ability model of Emotional Intelligence), we develop a Model for Emotional Intelligence to advance biology education research in this arena. This essay aims to inform assessments of current and future interventions designed to counteract emotional invalidation and encourage the development of emotional management among students and instructors. In alignment with our collective effort to support student well-being in the life sciences, the study of Emotional Intelligence in undergraduate biology education has the potential to support student mental health as future scientists and health care practitioners.

Open Resources for Biology Education (ORBE): a resource collection.

In undergraduate life sciences education, open educational resources (OERs) increase accessibility and retention for students, reduce costs, and save instructors time and effort. Despite increasing awareness and utilization of these resources, OERs are not centrally located, and many undergraduate instructors describe challenges in locating relevant materials for use in their classes. To address this challenge, we have designed a resource collection (referred to as Open Resources for Biology Education, ORBE) with 89 unique resources that are primarily relevant to undergraduate life sciences education. To identify the resources in ORBE, we asked undergraduate life sciences instructors to list what OERs they use in their teaching and curated their responses. Here, we summarize the contents of the ORBE and describe how educators can use this resource as a tool to identify suitable materials to use in their classroom context. By highlighting the breadth of unique resources openly available for undergraduate biology education, we intend for the ORBE to increase instructors' awareness and use of OERs.

Examining Motivational Attitudes Toward Statistics and Their Relationship to Performance in Life Science Students

A strong foundation of statistics is essential for undergraduates pursuing life science careers, but this foundation is frequently undermined by negative student attitudes toward statistics. This study explored life science students’ motivational attitudes toward statistics, and their relationship to performance, using expectancy-value theory as a guiding framework. According to expectancy-value theory, task-values—interest in a task (intrinsic value), importance of doing well on a task (attainment value), perceptions of the usefulness of a task (utility value), and negative aspects of engaging in a task (cost)—impact achievement outcomes. However, task-values may be better represented by differentiating each into more specific underlying dimensions, or facets. Using 360 undergraduate life science students enrolled in biostatistics courses across two institutions, this study assessed the fit of a task-value facets model for statistics and examined which task-value facets relate to performance on a statistics assessment. Results show that life science students distinguish among facets of attainment value (importance of achievement, personal importance), utility value (school, daily life, social, career/job), and cost (effort, emotional, opportunity) for statistics. Students’ perceptions of the emotional cost of statistics and the importance of achievement in statistics related to their statistics performance. Implications for teaching and research are discussed. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

Connecting plant science education in undergraduate life science courses to plant awareness disparity, Vision and Change, and sustainability careers

ABSTRACT Ensuring that botany and plant sciences are being included in undergraduate life science curricula is necessary for developing a future global sustainability workforce. To gain a baseline understanding, we surveyed life science educators in the U.S. about current botanical education. We further evaluated these data to determine connections to the frameworks of plant awareness disparity (PAD), a framework detailing the inability to notice or appreciate the plants in one’s own environment, and Vision and Change, an educational framework in the U.S. for preparing undergraduate biology students for the 21st century. Results from 245 responses revealed that most instructors use botanical examples and implement diverse hands-on botanical experiences. Our data suggest that hands-on botanical experiences are better suited to address PAD, the more science practice-centred framework, while plant examples are better suited to increase the understanding of core concepts of Vision and Change, the more concept-centred framework. We recommend that life science educators should 1) remain diligent in providing plant examples and hands-on botanical experiences in large introductory courses, 2) incorporate more botany education in general education courses (not required by the major but required by the institutions) and non-major courses, and 3) include educators outside of botany in these efforts.

Accuracy and completeness of autobiographical memory: evidence from a wearable camera study

ABSTRACT A small wearable camera, SenseCam, passively captured pictures from everyday experience that were later used to evaluate the accuracy and completeness of autobiographical memory. Nine undergraduates wore SenseCams that took pictures every 10 s for two days. After one week and one month, participants first recalled their experiences from specific time periods (timeslices), then reviewed the corresponding pictures to make corrections and report information omitted from initial recall. Results demonstrated the utility of wearable cameras as research tools, and illustrated several characteristics of everyday memory. Recall contents reflected the structure of undergraduate lives. Three different types of omissions were reported: neglected, reminded, and forgotten. Pictures stimulated memory, even for non-visual information (e.g., feelings, thoughts), increasing recall by 23%. The mean completeness of initial recall was 79% (upper bound), with at least 21% forgetting. Accuracy was self-scored by participants (M = 89%), and the mean error rate (11%) provided evidence against strong reconstructive and copy theories of memory. The characteristics of errors shed light on the cognitive processes underlying them. Ratings of recall (confidence, reliving, knowledge, and frequency) supported the episodic/semantic distinction, the dual-process theory of repetition, and reconstructive imagery. Metamemory measures showed a positive correlation between confidence and accuracy.

Perspectives from Undergraduate Life Sciences Faculty: Are We Equipped to Effectively Accommodate Students With Disabilities in Our Classrooms?

Higher education has evolved in ways that may increase the challenges life science faculty face in providing accommodations for students with disabilities. Guided by Expectancy-Value Theory, we interviewed 34 life sciences faculty instructors from institutions nationwide to explore faculty motivation to create disability-inclusive educational experiences. We found that faculty in our sample perceive that providing most standard accommodations is a manageable but often challenging task. Further, faculty in our sample feel that improving accommodations necessitates additional support from their institutions. Most faculty had high attainment value for providing accommodations, in that they strongly believed that supporting students with disabilities is the fair and right thing to do. However, faculty did not perceive much utility value or intrinsic value in their task of providing accommodations, and most reported that providing accommodations can be a substantial burden on faculty. These findings imply that current approaches to providing inclusive educational experiences for students with disabilities rely primarily on the personal belief that providing accommodations is the right thing to do, which likely results in a flawed and inequitable system given that not all faculty equally share this conviction.

The combined effects of physical and virtual models in learning cellular biology

Physical models have long been used in science education for visualization of complex cellular structure and dynamics during face-to-face lecture (F2F). Recent advancement of technology has enabled us to create virtual models and to share knowledge remotely. This study aims to find out whether physical and virtual models work synergistically to enhance student engagement in learning an undergraduate Life Sciences module. Three independent experiments were conducted to assess learning effectiveness on three biology concepts through four learning approaches: video with virtual model only, video with integration of virtual and physical model demonstration, F2F lecture using virtual model only, F2F lecture using virtual and physical models. Participants were randomly assigned to different groups each with one learning approach. Data collected through pre- and post-tests revealed that significant improvement in learning scientific concepts occurred in one of three controlled experiments when the video contains both virtual and physical models, while no obvious difference found in the other two experiments. This data suggests that well-prepared digital media alone may convey scientific information well and additional physical models do not aid in information acquisition. However, feedback survey on student learning experience showed that all participants preferred to learn from physical models. In all three experiments, students consistently voted that the physical models attracted their attention and enhanced their interests. They made better mind maps and raised more questions. These hint that a combination of digital media with physical models might improve engagement and promote higher order thinking.

Diversifying laboratory assessment modes broadens engagement with practical competencies in life science students.

Laboratory practicals in life science subjects are traditionally assessed by written reports that reflect disciplinary norms for documenting experimental activities. However, the exclusive application of this assessment has the potential to engage only a narrow range of competencies. In this study, we explored how multiple modes of laboratory assessment might affect student perceptions of learned skills in a life science module. We hypothesized that while a mixture of assessments may not impact student summative performance, it might positively influence student perceptions of different skills that varied assessments allowed them to practice. This was informed by universal design for learning and teaching for understanding frameworks. In our study, in a third-year Bioscience program, written reports were complemented with group presentations and online quizzes via Moodle. Anonymous surveys evaluated whether this expanded portfolio of assessments promoted awareness of, and engagement with, a broader range of practical competencies. Aspects that influenced student preferences in assessment mode included time limitations, time investment, ability to practice new skills, links with lecture material, and experience of assessment anxiety. In particular, presentations were highlighted as promoting collaboration and communication and the quiz as an effective means of diversifying assessment schedules. A key takeaway from students was that while reports were important, an overreliance on them was detrimental. This study suggests that undergraduate life science students can benefit significantly from a holistic assessment strategy that complements reports with performance-based approaches that incorporate broader competencies and allow for greater student engagement and expression in undergraduate modules.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study suggests that undergraduate life science students can benefit significantly from a holistic assessment strategy that complements reports with performance-based approaches that incorporate broader competencies and allow for greater student engagement and expression in undergraduate modules.

The Visual Science Communication Toolkit: Responding to the Need for Visual Science Communication Training in Undergraduate Life Sciences Education

Visual representations are essential to scientific research and teaching, playing a role in conceptual understanding, knowledge generation, and the communication of discovery and change. Undergraduate students are expected to interpret, use, and create visual representations so they can make their thinking explicit when engaging in discourse with the scientific community. Despite the importance of visualization in the biosciences, students often learn visualization skills in an ad hoc fashion without a clear framework. We used a mixed-methods sequential explanatory study design to explore and assess the pedagogical needs of undergraduate biology students (n = 53), instructors (n = 13), and teaching assistants (n = 8) in visual science communication education. Key themes were identified using inductive grounded theory methods. We found that extrinsic motivations, namely time, financial resources, and grading practices, contribute to a lack of guidance, support, and structure as well as ambiguous expectations and standards perceived by students and instructors. Biology and science visualization instructors cite visual communication assessments as a way of developing and evaluating students’ higher-order thinking skills in addition to their communication competencies. An output of this research, the development of a learning module, the Visual Science Communication Toolkit, is discussed along with design considerations for developing resources for visual science communication education.

Gender, Equity, and Science Writing: Examining Differences in Undergraduate Life Science Majors’ Attitudes toward Writing Lab Reports

It is often causally generalized that females naturally excel more at writing than males. Contrastingly, modern conventional wisdom similarly purports that males often innately excel more at science. True or not, both generalizations overlook important gender differences at the intersection of writing in science. This quantitative study investigates undergraduate life science majors’ attitudes to and perceptions of writing lab reports for 294 students who self-identify as either female or male. We used exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to develop a three-factor scale and provide reliability and validity on several related constructs: confidence, sense of belonging, and persistence as a life science major. Our results indicate males self-report as being significantly more confident at writing lab reports (F (1, 292) = 186.08, p < 0.05) than females. With regard to writing lab reports, no significant differences were found between genders in the constructs of belongingness (F (1, 292) = 1.64, p = 0.20) and persistence as a life science major (F (1, 292) = 0.66, p = 0.42). Understanding attitudes and perceptions toward writing lab reports through an equity lens provides information to help science majors be successful. Our findings add to the literature on gender, equity, and science writing, motivating further exploration into underlying malleable cognitive mechanisms.

Relation of life sciences students’ metacognitive monitoring to neural activity during biology error detection

Metacognitive calibration—the capacity to accurately self-assess one’s performance—forms the basis for error detection and self-monitoring and is a potential catalyst for conceptual change. Limited brain imaging research on authentic learning tasks implicates the lateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate brain regions in expert scientific reasoning. This study aimed to determine how variation in undergraduate life sciences students’ metacognitive calibration relates to their brain activity when evaluating the accuracy of biological models. Fifty undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory life sciences course completed a biology model error detection task during fMRI. Students with higher metacognitive calibration recruited lateral prefrontal regions linked in prior research to expert STEM reasoning to a greater extent than those with lower metacognitive calibration. Findings suggest that metacognition relates to important individual differences in undergraduate students’ use of neural resources during an authentic educational task and underscore the importance of fostering metacognitive calibration in the classroom.

Decoding the Life of Undergraduates through Signs of College Memes on Universitas Pershitpostingan Indonesia’s Facebook Fanpage

Decoding the Life of Undergraduates through Signs of College Memes on Universitas Pershitpostingan Indonesia’s Facebook Fanpage

Conflicts in the life of undergraduates: an empirical gender review

Conflicts in the life of undergraduates: an empirical gender review

Seeing Eye to Eye? Comparing Faculty and Student Perceptions of Biomolecular Visualization Assessments

While visual literacy has been identified as a foundational skill in life science education, there are many challenges in teaching and assessing biomolecular visualization skills. Among these are the lack of consensus about what constitutes competence and limited understanding of student and instructor perceptions of visual literacy tasks. In this study, we administered a set of biomolecular visualization assessments, developed as part of the BioMolViz project, to both students and instructors at multiple institutions and compared their perceptions of task difficulty. We then analyzed our findings using a mixed-methods approach. Quantitative analysis was used to answer the following research questions: (1) Which assessment items exhibit statistically significant disparities or agreements in perceptions of difficulty between instructors and students? (2) Do these perceptions persist when controlling for race/ethnicity and gender? and (3) How does student perception of difficulty relate to performance? Qualitative analysis of open-ended comments was used to identify predominant themes related to visual problem solving. The results show that perceptions of difficulty significantly differ between students and instructors and that students’ performance is a significant predictor of their perception of difficulty. Overall, this study underscores the need to incorporate deliberate instruction in visualization into undergraduate life science curricula to improve student ability in this area. Accordingly, we offer recommendations to promote visual literacy skills in the classroom.

Revisiting barriers to implementation of bioinformatics into life sciences education

IntroductionBioinformatics is an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of computational and biological sciences that focuses on the analysis and interpretation of large biological data sets. Although recognized as essential in the life sciences, bioinformatics is not commonly integrated in undergraduate life science education programs. Based on a national survey in 2016, the Network for Integrating Bioinformatics into Life Sciences Education (NIBLSE) published a community-sourced set of core competencies in bioinformatics education. The survey also identified barriers that prevent incorporation of these competencies into the curriculum. In the current study, the NIBLSE group reports the findings of a new survey to 509 life science educators across the US in 2022 to identify current barriers of bioinformatics integration and to determine if the landscape of bioinformatics education has changed since the 2016 survey.ResultsSimilar to previous results, a majority of respondents who currently teach bioinformatics or plan to teach bioinformatics report barriers. The top two barriers reported are students lacking prerequisite skills/knowledge and instructors lacking time to restructure course content. As in 2016, women reported experiencing barriers to bioinformatics teaching significantly more often than men; faculty from underrepresented minority backgrounds reported barriers more often than non-URM faculty; and educators at minority-serving institutions (MSIs) reported barriers more frequently than colleagues at non-MSIs. For additional insight into the barriers facing these educators, we conducted focus groups which provided qualitative data that supported the survey findings and revealed common themes including faculty perceptions of the relevance of bioinformatics in the curriculum. Despite the perceived value of bioinformatics education, many focus group members cited lack of student preparation and interest, and technological access as barriers. Participants also discussed how professional development and community support would enhance and sustain bioinformatics teaching.DiscussionTaken all together, this study indicates that challenges remain, which vary among faculty types and settings, but that more educators are attempting to integrate bioinformatics into life sciences education. In summary, our results suggest that redoubled efforts to provide training and community support to life sciences faculty is necessary.