Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, California State University, Fullerton, Fullerton, CA 92834.
Department of Chemistry, Seattle University, Seattle, WA 98122.
CBE Life Sci Educ. 2021 Sep;20(3):ar35. doi: 10.1187/cbe.20-04-0078.
Metabolic systems form the very foundation of life and as such are broadly taught in the molecular life sciences. Here, we describe the biochemistry educator community-based development and use of an assessment instrument designed to evaluate students' ideas about metabolic pathway dynamics and regulation in undergraduate biochemistry courses. Analysis of student responses showed that most students were able to interpret visual representations in an unfamiliar metabolic pathway and that many could make basic predictions about how the system would be expected to respond to changes. However, fewer students generated nuanced responses that accounted for both microscopic changes at the protein level and macroscopic changes in pathway product outputs. These findings identify some of the challenges of meaningfully assessing students' understanding of metabolic pathways and could inform how instructors think about teaching and assessing metabolism in undergraduate biochemistry and beyond. The results also suggest future avenues for biochemistry education research.
代谢系统是生命的基础，因此在分子生命科学中广泛教授。在这里，我们描述了一个基于社区的生物化学教育者开发和使用的评估工具，旨在评估学生在本科生物化学课程中对代谢途径动态和调节的想法。对学生回答的分析表明，大多数学生能够解释不熟悉的代谢途径中的视觉表示，并且许多学生能够对系统如何响应变化做出基本预测。然而，较少的学生能够生成细致入微的反应，既考虑到蛋白质水平的微观变化，又考虑到途径产物输出的宏观变化。这些发现确定了一些有意义地评估学生对代谢途径理解的挑战，并可能为教师在本科生物化学及以后的教学和评估代谢方面提供思路。结果还为生物化学教育研究提供了未来的途径。
