Uminski Crystal, Cammarota Christian, Couch Brian A, Wright L Kate, Newman Dina L
Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York, United States of America.
School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2025 Jul 2;20(7):e0317077. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0317077. eCollection 2025.
Visual models are a necessary part of molecular biology education because submicroscopic compounds and processes cannot be directly observed. Accurately interpreting the biological information conveyed by the shapes and symbols in these visual models requires engaging visual literacy skills. For students to develop expertise in molecular biology visual literacy, they need to have structured experiences using and creating visual models, but there is little evidence to gauge how often undergraduate biology students are provided such opportunities. To investigate students' visual literacy experiences, we surveyed 66 instructors who taught lower division undergraduate biology courses with a focus on molecular biology concepts. We collected self-reported data about the frequency with which the instructors teach with visual models and we analyzed course exams to determine how instructors incorporated visual models into their assessments. We found that most instructors reported teaching with models in their courses, yet only 16% of exam items in the sample contained a visual model. There was not a statistically significant relationship between instructors' self-reported frequency of teaching with models and extent to which their exams contained models, signaling a potential mismatch between teaching and assessment practices. Although exam items containing models have the potential to elicit higher-order cognitive skills through model-based reasoning, we found that when instructors included visual models in their exams the majority of the items only targeted the lower-order cognitive skills of Bloom's Taxonomy. Together, our findings highlight that despite the importance of visual models in molecular biology, students may not often have opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of these models on assessments.
视觉模型是分子生物学教育的必要组成部分，因为亚微观的化合物和过程无法直接观察到。准确解读这些视觉模型中形状和符号所传达的生物学信息需要具备一定的视觉素养技能。为了让学生在分子生物学视觉素养方面发展专业能力，他们需要有使用和创建视觉模型的结构化体验，但几乎没有证据可以衡量本科生物学学生获得此类机会的频率。为了调查学生的视觉素养体验，我们对66名教授低年级本科生物学课程且重点讲授分子生物学概念的教师进行了调查。我们收集了关于教师使用视觉模型教学频率的自我报告数据，并分析了课程考试，以确定教师如何将视觉模型纳入他们的评估中。我们发现，大多数教师报告在他们的课程中使用模型教学，但样本中只有16%的考试题目包含视觉模型。教师自我报告的使用模型教学频率与他们的考试中包含模型的程度之间没有统计学上的显著关系，这表明教学与评估实践之间可能存在不匹配。尽管包含模型的考试题目有可能通过基于模型的推理引发高阶认知技能，但我们发现，当教师在考试中纳入视觉模型时，大多数题目仅针对布鲁姆分类法中的低阶认知技能。总之，我们的研究结果表明，尽管视觉模型在分子生物学中很重要，但学生可能并不经常有机会在评估中展示他们对这些模型的理解。
