Rissing Steven W, Cogan John G
Introductory Biology Program, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
CBE Life Sci Educ. 2009 Spring;8(1):55-61. doi: 10.1187/cbe.08-05-0023.
We present an inquiry-based, hands-on laboratory exercise on enzyme activity for an introductory college biology course for science majors. We measure student performance on a series of objective and subjective questions before and after completion of this exercise; we also measure performance of a similar cohort of students before and after completion of an existing, standard, "direct" exercise over the same topics. Although student performance on these questions increased significantly after completion of the inquiry exercise, it did not increase after completion of the control, standard exercise. Pressure to "cover" many complex topics as preparation for high-stakes examinations such as the Medical College Admissions Test may account for persistence of highly efficient, yet dubiously effective "cookbook" laboratory exercises in many science classes.
我们为理科专业的大学入门生物学课程提供了一个基于探究的、亲自动手的酶活性实验室练习。我们在这个练习完成前后，对一系列客观和主观问题测量了学生的表现；我们还测量了在完成关于相同主题的现有标准“直接”练习前后，一组类似学生的表现。虽然在完成探究练习后，学生在这些问题上的表现显著提高，但在完成对照的标准练习后却没有提高。为诸如医学院入学考试等高风险考试做准备时，要“涵盖”许多复杂主题的压力，可能解释了在许多科学课程中高效但效果存疑的“食谱式”实验室练习为何持续存在。
