Duncan Dara B, Lubman Alexandra, Hoskins Sally G
Biology Dept., City College of CUNY, New York, NY 10031.
J Microbiol Biol Educ. 2011 Dec 1;12(2):143-51. doi: 10.1128/jmbe.v12i2.307. Print 2011.
Attrition of undergraduates from Biology majors is a long-standing problem. Introductory courses that fail to engage students or spark their curiosity by emphasizing the open-ended and creative nature of biological investigation and discovery could contribute to student detachment from the field. Our hypothesis was that introductory biology books devote relatively few figures to illustration of the design and interpretation of experiments or field studies, thereby de-emphasizing the scientific process. To investigate this possibility, we examined figures in six Introductory Biology textbooks published in 2008. On average, multistep scientific investigations were presented in fewer than 5% of the hundreds of figures in each book. Devoting such a small percentage of figures to the processes by which discoveries are made discourages an emphasis on scientific thinking. We suggest that by increasing significantly the illustration of scientific investigations, textbooks could support undergraduates' early interest in biology, stimulate the development of design and analytical skills, and inspire some students to participate in investigations of their own.
生物学专业本科学生的流失是一个长期存在的问题。入门课程若未能通过强调生物学研究和发现的开放性与创造性来吸引学生或激发他们的好奇心，可能会导致学生与该领域脱节。我们的假设是，生物学入门教材用于阐释实验或实地研究的设计与解读的插图相对较少，从而淡化了科学过程。为了探究这种可能性，我们检查了2008年出版的六本生物学入门教材中的插图。平均而言，每本书中数百幅插图里呈现多步骤科学研究的不到5%。将如此小比例的插图用于展示发现的过程不利于对科学思维的强调。我们建议，通过大幅增加科学研究的插图，教材可以支持本科生早期对生物学的兴趣，促进设计和分析技能的发展，并激励一些学生参与他们自己的研究。
