Although many scientists agree that evolution does not make claims about God/god(s), students mig... more Although many scientists agree that evolution does not make claims about God/god(s), students might assume that evolution is atheistic, and this may lead to lower evolution acceptance. In study 1, we surveyed 1081 college biology students at one university about their religiosity and evolution acceptance and asked what religious ideas someone would have to reject if that person were to accept evolution. Approximately half of students wrote that a person cannot believe in God/religion and accept evolution, indicating that these students may have atheistic perceptions of evolution. Religiosity was not related to whether a student wrote that evolution is atheistic, but writing that evolution is atheistic was associated with lower evolution acceptance among the more religious students. In study 2, we collected data from 1898 students in eight states in the United States using a closed-ended survey. We found that 56.5% of students perceived that evolution is atheistic even when they were given the option to choose an agnostic perception of evolution. Further, among the most religious students, those who thought evolution is atheistic were less accepting of evolution, less comfortable learning evolution, and perceived greater conflict between their personal religious beliefs and evolution than those who thought evolution is agnostic.
Background and objectives Universities throughout the United States increasingly offer undergradu... more Background and objectives Universities throughout the United States increasingly offer undergraduate courses in Evolutionary Medicine (EvMed), which creates a need for pedagogical resources. Several resources offer course content (e.g., textbooks) and a previous study identified EvMed core principles to help instructors set learning goals. However, assessment tools are not yet available. In this study, we address this need by developing an assessment that measures students’ ability to apply EvMed core principles to various health-related scenarios. Methodology The EvMed Assessment (EMA) consists of questions containing a short description of a health-related scenario followed by several likely/unlikely items. We evaluated the assessment’s validity and reliability using a variety of qualitative (expert reviews, student interviews) and quantitative (Cronbach’s α, Classical Test Theory) methods. We iteratively revised the assessment through several rounds of validation. We then adminis...
Mental health conditions can impact college students’ academic achievements and experiences. As s... more Mental health conditions can impact college students’ academic achievements and experiences. As such, students may choose to disclose mental illnesses on medical school applications. Yet, no recent studies have investigated to what extent disclosure of a mental health condition may impact whether an applicant is accepted to medical school. We conducted an audit study to address this gap and surveyed 99 potential medical school admissions committee members from over 40 M.D.-granting schools in the United States. Participants rated a fictitious portion of a single medical school application on acceptability, competence, and likeability. They were randomly assigned to a condition: an application that explained a low semester grade-point average due to 1) a mental health condition, 2) a physical health condition, or 3) offered no explanation. After rating their respective application, all committee members were asked about when revealing a mental health condition would be beneficial and...
Student enrollments in online college courses have grown steadily over the past decade, and colle... more Student enrollments in online college courses have grown steadily over the past decade, and college administrators expect this trend to continue or accelerate. Despite the growing popularity of online education, one major critique in the sciences is that students are not trained in the hands-on skills they may need for the workforce, graduate school, or professional school. For example, the Association of American Medical Colleges has recommended that medical schools evaluate applicants on their motor skills and observation skills, yet many online biology programs do not offer opportunities for students to develop these skills. In on-campus biology programs, students commonly develop these skills through hands-on animal dissections, but educators have struggled with how to teach dissections in an online environment. We designed a fully online undergraduate biology course that includes at-home, hands-on dissections of eight vertebrate specimens. Over three course offerings, we evalua...
Evolution is a prominent component of biology education and remains controversial among college b... more Evolution is a prominent component of biology education and remains controversial among college biology students in the United States who are mostly Christian, but science education researchers have not explored the attitudes of Muslim biology students in the United States. To explore perceptions of evolution among Muslim students in the United States, we surveyed 7,909 college students in 52 biology classes in 13 states about their acceptance of evolution, interest in evolution, and understanding of evolution. Muslim students in our sample, on average, did not agree with items that measured acceptance of macroevolution and human evolution. Further, on average, Muslim students agreed, but did not strongly agree with items measuring microevolution acceptance. Controlling for gender, major, race/ethnicity, and international status, we found that the evolution acceptance and interest levels of Muslim students were slightly higher than Protestant students and students who are members of...
A suite of resources aligned with the core concepts of Vision and Change are presented to help in... more A suite of resources aligned with the core concepts of Vision and Change are presented to help instructors teach and assess student understanding of the core concepts.
Christians are one of the most underrepresented groups in science, and one potential explanation ... more Christians are one of the most underrepresented groups in science, and one potential explanation is that scientists have a bias against Christian students, which could discourage and actively prevent Christian students from becoming scientists. Although there is a general perception in society that there is bias against Christians in science, we do not know whether science students, who frequently interact with scientists, perceive this bias. Further, no researchers have attempted to experimentally document the existence of bias against Christians in science. To address these gaps in the literature, we designed three studies. In the first study, we found that college science students report a perceived bias against Christians in science and that evangelical Christians perceive greater bias than Catholic and non-Christian students. Then in two studies, biology professors evaluated Ph.D. program applicants and we examined whether the professors rated a student less favorably when the student revealed a Christian religious identity. We found no statistically significant differences in how biology professors rated a student who was President of the Christian Association compared to a student who was President of the Atheist Association or a student who was President of the Activities Association. However, in Study 3, biology professors did rate a Christian student who went on a mission trip with Campus Crusade for Christ as less hireable, less competent, and less likeable than a student who did not reveal a Christian identity. Taken together, these studies indicate that perceived bias against Christians in science may contribute to underrepresentation of Christians but actual bias against Christians in science may be restricted to a specific type of Christianity that scientists call fundamentalist and/or evangelical.
Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have been shown to lead to multiple stude... more Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have been shown to lead to multiple student benefits, but much is unknown about how CUREs lead to specific student outcomes. In this study, we examined the extent to which students making “broadly relevant novel discoveries” impacted student project ownership by comparing the experiences of students in a CURE and a traditional lab course. The CURE and traditional lab were similar in most aspects; students were exposed to an identical curriculum taught by the same instructor. However, there was one major difference between the two types of courses: the type of data that the students produced. Students in the traditional lab characterized the immune system of wild-type mice, thereby confirming results already known to the scientific community, while students in the CURE characterized the immune system of a mutant strain of mice, which produced broadly relevant novel discoveries. Compared with traditional lab students, CURE studen...
Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, 2019
Assessing learning across a biology major can help departments monitor achievement of broader pro... more Assessing learning across a biology major can help departments monitor achievement of broader program-level goals and identify opportunities for curricular improvement. However, biology departments have lacked suitable tools to measure learning at the program scale. To address this need, we developed four freely available assessments—called Biology-Measuring Achievement and Progression in Science or Bio-MAPS—for general biology, molecular biology, ecology/evolution, and physiology programs. When administered at multiple time points in a curriculum, these instruments can provide departments with information on how student conceptual understanding changes across a major and help guide curricular modifications to enhance learning.
Advancement of the scientific enterprise relies on individuals conducting research in an ethical ... more Advancement of the scientific enterprise relies on individuals conducting research in an ethical and responsible manner. Educating emergent scholars in the principles of ethics/responsible conduct of research (E/RCR) is therefore critical to ensuring such advancement. The recent impetus to include authentic research opportunities as part of the undergraduate curriculum, via course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), has been shown to increase cognitive and noncognitive student outcomes. Because of these important benefits, CUREs are becoming more common and often constitute the first research experience for many students. However, despite the importance of E/RCR in the research process, we know of few efforts to incorporate E/RCR education into CUREs. The Ethics Network for Course-based Opportunities in Undergraduate Research (ENCOUR) was created to address this concern and promote the integration of E/RCR within CUREs in the biological sciences and related disciplines...
Background and objectives: Undergraduate courses that include evolutionary medicine (EM) are incr... more Background and objectives: Undergraduate courses that include evolutionary medicine (EM) are increasingly available, but quantified data about such courses are lacking. In this article, we describe relevant course offerings by institution and department type, in conjunction with information on the backgrounds and experiences of associated instructors. Methodology: We searched course catalogs from 196 American universities to find courses that include EM, and sent a survey to 101 EM instructors to ask about their backgrounds and teaching experiences. Results: Research-focused universities (R1) were much more likely to offer at least one course that covers evolutionary applications to health and disease than universities that granted only bachelor's or master's degrees. A survey course on EM was offered in 56% of 116 R1 universities, but only 2% of the 80 non-R1 universities we searched. Most EM instructors have backgrounds in anthropology or biology; each instructor's area of expertise provides clues as to how continued growth of EM may occur differently by discipline. Conclusions and implications: Undergraduates are most likely to learn about EM in research-intensive universities from an anthropological or biological perspective. Responses from anthropology and biology instructors, including whom they share course materials with, highlight that courses may differ depending on the discipline in which they are taught. LAY SUMMARY Recognition of evolution's relevance to understanding health and disease is growing, but documentation of coverage in undergraduate education is lacking. This study explores where evolutionary medicine (EM) content is taught across 196 undergraduate institutions and how 53 instructors describe their experiences teaching EM.
Students’ religious beliefs and religious cultures have been shown to be the main factors predict... more Students’ religious beliefs and religious cultures have been shown to be the main factors predicting whether they will accept evolution, yet college biology instructors teaching evolution at public institutions often have religious beliefs and cultures that are different from their religious students. This difference in religious beliefs and cultures may be a barrier to effective evolution education. To explore when evolution instructors have similar religious cultures and beliefs as their students, we interviewed 32 evolution instructors at Christian universities nationwide about their practices and experiences teaching evolution. Christian university instructors emphasized teaching for acceptance of evolution while holding an inclusive teaching philosophy that they perceived led to a safe environment for students. Additionally, almost all instructors reported using practices that have been shown to increase student acceptance of evolution and reduce student conflict between evolut...
We describe the development of a new, freely available, online, programmatic-level assessment too... more We describe the development of a new, freely available, online, programmatic-level assessment tool, Measuring Achievement and Progress in Science in Physiology, or Phys-MAPS ( http://cperl.lassp.cornell.edu/bio-maps ). Aligned with the conceptual frameworks of Core Principles of Physiology, and Vision and Change Core Concepts, Phys-MAPS can be used to evaluate student learning of core physiology concepts at multiple time points in an undergraduate physiology program, providing a valuable longitudinal tool to gain insight into student thinking and aid in the data-driven reform of physiology curricula. Phys-MAPS questions have a modified multiple true/false design and were developed using an iterative process, including student interviews and physiology expert review to verify scientific accuracy, appropriateness for physiology majors, and clarity. The final version of Phys-MAPS was tested with 2,600 students across 13 universities, has evidence of reliability, and has no significant ...
Evolution is foundational to biology but is controversial for many undergraduate students. Althou... more Evolution is foundational to biology but is controversial for many undergraduate students. Although evolution and religion are potentially compatible, students' perceived conflict between their religious beliefs and evolution can negatively affect their acceptance of evolution. In a previous study, we found that illustrating the potential compatibility of religion and evolution decreased the number of students who perceived a conflict between religion and evolution by 53 percent. However, in the previous study, the instruction on the potential compatibility of religion and evolution took a significant amount of instructional time, which could be a barrier for implementation. In this current study, we condensed the instruction illustrating the potential compatibility of religion and evolution to six minutes. By conducting qualitative analyses on data gathered from ten students who perceived a conflict before the evolution module, we found that eight of these students reduced thei...
A new assessment tool, Ecology and Evolution-Measuring Achievement and Progression in Science or ... more A new assessment tool, Ecology and Evolution-Measuring Achievement and Progression in Science or EcoEvo-MAPS, measures student thinking in ecology and evolution during an undergraduate course of study. EcoEvo-MAPS targets foundational concepts in ecology and evolution and uses a novel approach that asks students to evaluate a series of predictions, conclusions, or interpretations as likely or unlikely to be true given a specific scenario. We collected evidence of validity and reliability for EcoEvo-MAPS through an iterative process of faculty review, student interviews, and analyses of assessment data from more than 3000 students at 34 associate's-, bachelor's-, master's-, and doctoral-granting institutions. The 63 likely/unlikely statements range in difficulty and target student understanding of key concepts aligned with the Vision and Change report. This assessment provides departments with a tool to measure student thinking at different time points in the curriculum a...
Low acceptance of evolution among undergraduate students is common and is best predicted by relig... more Low acceptance of evolution among undergraduate students is common and is best predicted by religious beliefs. Decreasing students' perceived conflict between religion and evolution could increase their acceptance of evolution. However, college biology instructors may struggle with trying to decrease students' perceived conflict between religion and evolution because of differences in the religious cultures and beliefs of instructors and students. Although a large percentage of undergraduate students in evolution courses are religious, most instructors teaching evolution are not. To consider differences between the secular culture of many college instructors and the religious culture of many students, we propose using a lens of cultural competence to create effective evolution education. Cultural competence is the ability of individuals from one culture (in this case, primarily secular instructors who are teaching evolution) to bridge cultural differences and effectively com...
Learning student names has been promoted as an inclusive classroom practice, but it is unknown wh... more Learning student names has been promoted as an inclusive classroom practice, but it is unknown whether students value having their names known by an instructor. We explored this question in the context of a high-enrollment active-learning undergraduate biology course. Using surveys and semistructured interviews, we investigated whether students perceived that instructors know their names, the importance of instructors knowing their names, and how instructors learned their names. We found that, while only 20% of students perceived their names were known in previous high-enrollment biology classes, 78% of students perceived that an instructor of this course knew their names. However, instructors only knew 53% of names, indicating that instructors do not have to know student names in order for students to perceive that their names are known. Using grounded theory, we identified nine reasons why students feel that having their names known is important. When we asked students how they pe...
Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, 2017
We recommend using backward design to develop course-based undergraduate research experiences (CU... more We recommend using backward design to develop course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). The defining hallmark of CUREs is that students in a formal lab course explore research questions with unknown answers that are broadly relevant outside the course. Because CUREs lead to novel research findings, they represent a unique course design challenge, as the dual nature of these courses requires course designers to consider two distinct, but complementary, sets of goals for the CURE: 1) scientific discovery milestones (i.e., research goals) and 2) student learning in cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains (i.e., pedagogical goals). As more undergraduate laboratory courses are re-imagined as CUREs, how do we thoughtfully design these courses to effectively meet both sets of goals? In this Perspectives article, we explore this question and outline recommendations for using backward design in CURE development.
A major research thrust in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is ... more A major research thrust in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is focused on how to retain students as STEM majors. The accumulation of seemingly insignificant negative experiences in STEM classes can, over time, lead STEM students to have a low sense of belonging in their disciplines, and this can lead to lower retention. In this paper, we explore how Judeo-Christian students in biology have experiences related to their religious identities that could impact their retention in biology. In 28 interviews with Judeo-Christian students taking undergraduate biology classes, students reported a religious identity that can conflict with the secular culture and content of biology. Some students felt that, because they are religious, they fall within a minority in their classes and would not be seen as credible within the biology community. Students reported adverse experiences when instructors had negative dispositions toward religion and when instructors wer...
Although many scientists agree that evolution does not make claims about God/god(s), students mig... more Although many scientists agree that evolution does not make claims about God/god(s), students might assume that evolution is atheistic, and this may lead to lower evolution acceptance. In study 1, we surveyed 1081 college biology students at one university about their religiosity and evolution acceptance and asked what religious ideas someone would have to reject if that person were to accept evolution. Approximately half of students wrote that a person cannot believe in God/religion and accept evolution, indicating that these students may have atheistic perceptions of evolution. Religiosity was not related to whether a student wrote that evolution is atheistic, but writing that evolution is atheistic was associated with lower evolution acceptance among the more religious students. In study 2, we collected data from 1898 students in eight states in the United States using a closed-ended survey. We found that 56.5% of students perceived that evolution is atheistic even when they were given the option to choose an agnostic perception of evolution. Further, among the most religious students, those who thought evolution is atheistic were less accepting of evolution, less comfortable learning evolution, and perceived greater conflict between their personal religious beliefs and evolution than those who thought evolution is agnostic.
Background and objectives Universities throughout the United States increasingly offer undergradu... more Background and objectives Universities throughout the United States increasingly offer undergraduate courses in Evolutionary Medicine (EvMed), which creates a need for pedagogical resources. Several resources offer course content (e.g., textbooks) and a previous study identified EvMed core principles to help instructors set learning goals. However, assessment tools are not yet available. In this study, we address this need by developing an assessment that measures students’ ability to apply EvMed core principles to various health-related scenarios. Methodology The EvMed Assessment (EMA) consists of questions containing a short description of a health-related scenario followed by several likely/unlikely items. We evaluated the assessment’s validity and reliability using a variety of qualitative (expert reviews, student interviews) and quantitative (Cronbach’s α, Classical Test Theory) methods. We iteratively revised the assessment through several rounds of validation. We then adminis...
Mental health conditions can impact college students’ academic achievements and experiences. As s... more Mental health conditions can impact college students’ academic achievements and experiences. As such, students may choose to disclose mental illnesses on medical school applications. Yet, no recent studies have investigated to what extent disclosure of a mental health condition may impact whether an applicant is accepted to medical school. We conducted an audit study to address this gap and surveyed 99 potential medical school admissions committee members from over 40 M.D.-granting schools in the United States. Participants rated a fictitious portion of a single medical school application on acceptability, competence, and likeability. They were randomly assigned to a condition: an application that explained a low semester grade-point average due to 1) a mental health condition, 2) a physical health condition, or 3) offered no explanation. After rating their respective application, all committee members were asked about when revealing a mental health condition would be beneficial and...
Student enrollments in online college courses have grown steadily over the past decade, and colle... more Student enrollments in online college courses have grown steadily over the past decade, and college administrators expect this trend to continue or accelerate. Despite the growing popularity of online education, one major critique in the sciences is that students are not trained in the hands-on skills they may need for the workforce, graduate school, or professional school. For example, the Association of American Medical Colleges has recommended that medical schools evaluate applicants on their motor skills and observation skills, yet many online biology programs do not offer opportunities for students to develop these skills. In on-campus biology programs, students commonly develop these skills through hands-on animal dissections, but educators have struggled with how to teach dissections in an online environment. We designed a fully online undergraduate biology course that includes at-home, hands-on dissections of eight vertebrate specimens. Over three course offerings, we evalua...
Evolution is a prominent component of biology education and remains controversial among college b... more Evolution is a prominent component of biology education and remains controversial among college biology students in the United States who are mostly Christian, but science education researchers have not explored the attitudes of Muslim biology students in the United States. To explore perceptions of evolution among Muslim students in the United States, we surveyed 7,909 college students in 52 biology classes in 13 states about their acceptance of evolution, interest in evolution, and understanding of evolution. Muslim students in our sample, on average, did not agree with items that measured acceptance of macroevolution and human evolution. Further, on average, Muslim students agreed, but did not strongly agree with items measuring microevolution acceptance. Controlling for gender, major, race/ethnicity, and international status, we found that the evolution acceptance and interest levels of Muslim students were slightly higher than Protestant students and students who are members of...
A suite of resources aligned with the core concepts of Vision and Change are presented to help in... more A suite of resources aligned with the core concepts of Vision and Change are presented to help instructors teach and assess student understanding of the core concepts.
Christians are one of the most underrepresented groups in science, and one potential explanation ... more Christians are one of the most underrepresented groups in science, and one potential explanation is that scientists have a bias against Christian students, which could discourage and actively prevent Christian students from becoming scientists. Although there is a general perception in society that there is bias against Christians in science, we do not know whether science students, who frequently interact with scientists, perceive this bias. Further, no researchers have attempted to experimentally document the existence of bias against Christians in science. To address these gaps in the literature, we designed three studies. In the first study, we found that college science students report a perceived bias against Christians in science and that evangelical Christians perceive greater bias than Catholic and non-Christian students. Then in two studies, biology professors evaluated Ph.D. program applicants and we examined whether the professors rated a student less favorably when the student revealed a Christian religious identity. We found no statistically significant differences in how biology professors rated a student who was President of the Christian Association compared to a student who was President of the Atheist Association or a student who was President of the Activities Association. However, in Study 3, biology professors did rate a Christian student who went on a mission trip with Campus Crusade for Christ as less hireable, less competent, and less likeable than a student who did not reveal a Christian identity. Taken together, these studies indicate that perceived bias against Christians in science may contribute to underrepresentation of Christians but actual bias against Christians in science may be restricted to a specific type of Christianity that scientists call fundamentalist and/or evangelical.
Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have been shown to lead to multiple stude... more Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have been shown to lead to multiple student benefits, but much is unknown about how CUREs lead to specific student outcomes. In this study, we examined the extent to which students making “broadly relevant novel discoveries” impacted student project ownership by comparing the experiences of students in a CURE and a traditional lab course. The CURE and traditional lab were similar in most aspects; students were exposed to an identical curriculum taught by the same instructor. However, there was one major difference between the two types of courses: the type of data that the students produced. Students in the traditional lab characterized the immune system of wild-type mice, thereby confirming results already known to the scientific community, while students in the CURE characterized the immune system of a mutant strain of mice, which produced broadly relevant novel discoveries. Compared with traditional lab students, CURE studen...
Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, 2019
Assessing learning across a biology major can help departments monitor achievement of broader pro... more Assessing learning across a biology major can help departments monitor achievement of broader program-level goals and identify opportunities for curricular improvement. However, biology departments have lacked suitable tools to measure learning at the program scale. To address this need, we developed four freely available assessments—called Biology-Measuring Achievement and Progression in Science or Bio-MAPS—for general biology, molecular biology, ecology/evolution, and physiology programs. When administered at multiple time points in a curriculum, these instruments can provide departments with information on how student conceptual understanding changes across a major and help guide curricular modifications to enhance learning.
Advancement of the scientific enterprise relies on individuals conducting research in an ethical ... more Advancement of the scientific enterprise relies on individuals conducting research in an ethical and responsible manner. Educating emergent scholars in the principles of ethics/responsible conduct of research (E/RCR) is therefore critical to ensuring such advancement. The recent impetus to include authentic research opportunities as part of the undergraduate curriculum, via course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), has been shown to increase cognitive and noncognitive student outcomes. Because of these important benefits, CUREs are becoming more common and often constitute the first research experience for many students. However, despite the importance of E/RCR in the research process, we know of few efforts to incorporate E/RCR education into CUREs. The Ethics Network for Course-based Opportunities in Undergraduate Research (ENCOUR) was created to address this concern and promote the integration of E/RCR within CUREs in the biological sciences and related disciplines...
Background and objectives: Undergraduate courses that include evolutionary medicine (EM) are incr... more Background and objectives: Undergraduate courses that include evolutionary medicine (EM) are increasingly available, but quantified data about such courses are lacking. In this article, we describe relevant course offerings by institution and department type, in conjunction with information on the backgrounds and experiences of associated instructors. Methodology: We searched course catalogs from 196 American universities to find courses that include EM, and sent a survey to 101 EM instructors to ask about their backgrounds and teaching experiences. Results: Research-focused universities (R1) were much more likely to offer at least one course that covers evolutionary applications to health and disease than universities that granted only bachelor's or master's degrees. A survey course on EM was offered in 56% of 116 R1 universities, but only 2% of the 80 non-R1 universities we searched. Most EM instructors have backgrounds in anthropology or biology; each instructor's area of expertise provides clues as to how continued growth of EM may occur differently by discipline. Conclusions and implications: Undergraduates are most likely to learn about EM in research-intensive universities from an anthropological or biological perspective. Responses from anthropology and biology instructors, including whom they share course materials with, highlight that courses may differ depending on the discipline in which they are taught. LAY SUMMARY Recognition of evolution's relevance to understanding health and disease is growing, but documentation of coverage in undergraduate education is lacking. This study explores where evolutionary medicine (EM) content is taught across 196 undergraduate institutions and how 53 instructors describe their experiences teaching EM.
Students’ religious beliefs and religious cultures have been shown to be the main factors predict... more Students’ religious beliefs and religious cultures have been shown to be the main factors predicting whether they will accept evolution, yet college biology instructors teaching evolution at public institutions often have religious beliefs and cultures that are different from their religious students. This difference in religious beliefs and cultures may be a barrier to effective evolution education. To explore when evolution instructors have similar religious cultures and beliefs as their students, we interviewed 32 evolution instructors at Christian universities nationwide about their practices and experiences teaching evolution. Christian university instructors emphasized teaching for acceptance of evolution while holding an inclusive teaching philosophy that they perceived led to a safe environment for students. Additionally, almost all instructors reported using practices that have been shown to increase student acceptance of evolution and reduce student conflict between evolut...
We describe the development of a new, freely available, online, programmatic-level assessment too... more We describe the development of a new, freely available, online, programmatic-level assessment tool, Measuring Achievement and Progress in Science in Physiology, or Phys-MAPS ( http://cperl.lassp.cornell.edu/bio-maps ). Aligned with the conceptual frameworks of Core Principles of Physiology, and Vision and Change Core Concepts, Phys-MAPS can be used to evaluate student learning of core physiology concepts at multiple time points in an undergraduate physiology program, providing a valuable longitudinal tool to gain insight into student thinking and aid in the data-driven reform of physiology curricula. Phys-MAPS questions have a modified multiple true/false design and were developed using an iterative process, including student interviews and physiology expert review to verify scientific accuracy, appropriateness for physiology majors, and clarity. The final version of Phys-MAPS was tested with 2,600 students across 13 universities, has evidence of reliability, and has no significant ...
Evolution is foundational to biology but is controversial for many undergraduate students. Althou... more Evolution is foundational to biology but is controversial for many undergraduate students. Although evolution and religion are potentially compatible, students' perceived conflict between their religious beliefs and evolution can negatively affect their acceptance of evolution. In a previous study, we found that illustrating the potential compatibility of religion and evolution decreased the number of students who perceived a conflict between religion and evolution by 53 percent. However, in the previous study, the instruction on the potential compatibility of religion and evolution took a significant amount of instructional time, which could be a barrier for implementation. In this current study, we condensed the instruction illustrating the potential compatibility of religion and evolution to six minutes. By conducting qualitative analyses on data gathered from ten students who perceived a conflict before the evolution module, we found that eight of these students reduced thei...
A new assessment tool, Ecology and Evolution-Measuring Achievement and Progression in Science or ... more A new assessment tool, Ecology and Evolution-Measuring Achievement and Progression in Science or EcoEvo-MAPS, measures student thinking in ecology and evolution during an undergraduate course of study. EcoEvo-MAPS targets foundational concepts in ecology and evolution and uses a novel approach that asks students to evaluate a series of predictions, conclusions, or interpretations as likely or unlikely to be true given a specific scenario. We collected evidence of validity and reliability for EcoEvo-MAPS through an iterative process of faculty review, student interviews, and analyses of assessment data from more than 3000 students at 34 associate's-, bachelor's-, master's-, and doctoral-granting institutions. The 63 likely/unlikely statements range in difficulty and target student understanding of key concepts aligned with the Vision and Change report. This assessment provides departments with a tool to measure student thinking at different time points in the curriculum a...
Low acceptance of evolution among undergraduate students is common and is best predicted by relig... more Low acceptance of evolution among undergraduate students is common and is best predicted by religious beliefs. Decreasing students' perceived conflict between religion and evolution could increase their acceptance of evolution. However, college biology instructors may struggle with trying to decrease students' perceived conflict between religion and evolution because of differences in the religious cultures and beliefs of instructors and students. Although a large percentage of undergraduate students in evolution courses are religious, most instructors teaching evolution are not. To consider differences between the secular culture of many college instructors and the religious culture of many students, we propose using a lens of cultural competence to create effective evolution education. Cultural competence is the ability of individuals from one culture (in this case, primarily secular instructors who are teaching evolution) to bridge cultural differences and effectively com...
Learning student names has been promoted as an inclusive classroom practice, but it is unknown wh... more Learning student names has been promoted as an inclusive classroom practice, but it is unknown whether students value having their names known by an instructor. We explored this question in the context of a high-enrollment active-learning undergraduate biology course. Using surveys and semistructured interviews, we investigated whether students perceived that instructors know their names, the importance of instructors knowing their names, and how instructors learned their names. We found that, while only 20% of students perceived their names were known in previous high-enrollment biology classes, 78% of students perceived that an instructor of this course knew their names. However, instructors only knew 53% of names, indicating that instructors do not have to know student names in order for students to perceive that their names are known. Using grounded theory, we identified nine reasons why students feel that having their names known is important. When we asked students how they pe...
Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, 2017
We recommend using backward design to develop course-based undergraduate research experiences (CU... more We recommend using backward design to develop course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). The defining hallmark of CUREs is that students in a formal lab course explore research questions with unknown answers that are broadly relevant outside the course. Because CUREs lead to novel research findings, they represent a unique course design challenge, as the dual nature of these courses requires course designers to consider two distinct, but complementary, sets of goals for the CURE: 1) scientific discovery milestones (i.e., research goals) and 2) student learning in cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains (i.e., pedagogical goals). As more undergraduate laboratory courses are re-imagined as CUREs, how do we thoughtfully design these courses to effectively meet both sets of goals? In this Perspectives article, we explore this question and outline recommendations for using backward design in CURE development.
A major research thrust in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is ... more A major research thrust in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is focused on how to retain students as STEM majors. The accumulation of seemingly insignificant negative experiences in STEM classes can, over time, lead STEM students to have a low sense of belonging in their disciplines, and this can lead to lower retention. In this paper, we explore how Judeo-Christian students in biology have experiences related to their religious identities that could impact their retention in biology. In 28 interviews with Judeo-Christian students taking undergraduate biology classes, students reported a religious identity that can conflict with the secular culture and content of biology. Some students felt that, because they are religious, they fall within a minority in their classes and would not be seen as credible within the biology community. Students reported adverse experiences when instructors had negative dispositions toward religion and when instructors wer...
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