Coleman Aaron B, Lorenzo Kyla, McLamb Flannery, Sanku Abhiraj, Khan Sahil, Bozinovic Goran
School of Biological Sciences, University of California, San Diego, California, 92093, USA.
College of Osteopathic Medicine, Touro University, Vallejo, California, 94592, USA.
Biochem Mol Biol Educ. 2023 May-Jun;51(3):286-301. doi: 10.1002/bmb.21727. Epub 2023 Apr 4.
Effectively teaching scientific reasoning requires an understanding of the challenges students face when learning these skills. We designed an assessment that measures undergraduate student abilities to form hypotheses, design experiments, and interpret data from experiments in cellular and molecular biology. The assessment uses intermediate-constraint free-response questions with a defined rubric to facilitate use with large classes, while identifying common reasoning errors that may prevent students from becoming proficient at designing and interpreting experiments. The assessment measured a statistically significant improvement in a senior-level biochemistry laboratory course, and a larger improvement between the biochemistry lab students and a separate cohort in a first-year introductory biology lab course. Two common errors were identified for forming hypotheses and using experimental controls. Students frequently constructed a hypothesis that was a restatement of the observation it was supposed to explain. They also often made comparisons to control conditions not included in an experiment. Both errors were most frequent among first-year students, and decreased in frequency as students completed the senior-level biochemistry lab. Further investigation of the absent controls error indicated that difficulties with reasoning about experimental controls may be widespread in undergraduate students. The assessment was a useful instrument for measuring improvement in scientific reasoning at different levels of instruction, and identified errors that can be targeted to improve instruction in the process of science.
有效地教授科学推理需要了解学生在学习这些技能时所面临的挑战。我们设计了一项评估，以衡量本科生在细胞与分子生物学中形成假设、设计实验以及解释实验数据的能力。该评估采用具有明确评分标准的中等约束自由回答问题，便于在大班教学中使用，同时识别可能阻碍学生熟练设计和解释实验的常见推理错误。该评估在一门高级生物化学实验课程中测得有统计学意义的进步，并且在生物化学实验课学生与一门一年级生物学入门实验课的另一组学生之间测得更大的进步。在形成假设和使用实验对照方面识别出两个常见错误。学生经常构建一个假设，只是对其本应解释的观察结果进行重新表述。他们还经常与实验中未包含的对照条件进行比较。这两个错误在一年级学生中最为常见，并且随着学生完成高级生物化学实验课，其出现频率降低。对缺失对照错误的进一步调查表明，本科生在实验对照推理方面的困难可能很普遍。该评估是衡量不同教学水平下科学推理进步的有用工具，并识别出可针对改进科学过程教学的错误。
