2011 NABT Biology Education Research Symposium

Thursday, October 13, 2011
Anaheim, California

Teddie Phillipson-Mower, Chair, University of Louisville
Emily Walter, University of Missouri
Brian Shmaefsky, Lone Star College - Kingwood 
Anneke Metz, Southern Illinois School of Medicine 
Grant Gardner, Eastern Carolina University
Jill Maroo, University of Southern Mississippi 
Kristy Halverson, University of Southern Mississippi

We would like to thank our reviewers for their time and detailed feedback.

Presenters

Jason R. Wiles, Department of Biology, Syracuse University, 107 College Place, Syracuse, NY 13244 (jwiles01@syr.edu)
Factors Potentially Influencing Student Acceptance of Biological Evolution

ABSTRACT: This investigation explored factors that may influence student acceptance of biological evolution and related concepts, how students perceived these factors to have influenced their levels of acceptance of evolution and changes therein, and what patterns arose among students’ articulations of how their levels of acceptance of evolution may have changed. This exploration also measured the extent to which students’ levels of acceptance changed following a treatment designed to address factors identified as potentially affecting student acceptance of evolution. Acceptance of evolution was measured using the MATE instrument (Rutledge and Warden, 1999; Rutledge and Sadler, 2007) among participants enrolled in a secondary-level academic program during the summer prior to their final year of high school and as they transitioned to the post secondary level. Student acceptance of evolution was measured to be significantly higher than pre-treatment levels both immediately following and slightly over one year after treatment. Qualitative data from informal questionnaires, from formal course evaluations, and from semi-structured interviews of students confirmed that the suspected factors were perceived by participants to have influenced their levels of acceptance of evolution. Furthermore, participant reports provided insight regarding the relative effects they perceived these factors to have had on their evolution acceptance levels.

Jacqueline B. Rojas, PhD, California State University Fullerton, Science Education Program, Fullerton, CA (jrohas@exchange.fullerton.edu)
Denise D. Boyd, MA, Santa Ana College, Department of Biology, Santa Ana, CA 
Revealing Generation 1.5 Student Awareness of Academic Self-Efficacy to Learn Biology through Inquiry

ABSTRACT: College non-major Biology classes require students to have academic self-efficacy to be successful. However, many students come to Biology courses with inadequate self-efficacy. The purpose of this study is to determine a method for Generation 1.5 students to accurately detect their academic self-efficacy and take appropriate action to advance their conceptual understanding of Biology. This study has two phases. The first phase, a preliminary study, was completed with 16 students in spring 2011 using BSCS Biological Perspectives as the inquiry-based curriculum. The second phase of the study will be conducted in summer of 2011. Three instruments are used: 1) a student self-efficacy questionnaire, 2) scientific understanding tests, and 3) individual interviews. One scale of the SMTSL Student Motivation Towards Science Learning questionnaire measures self-efficacy. It was found to have a high correlation with achievement scores (Tuan et al., 2005). Most findings from phase one of this study have not risen to the level of statistical significance. However, there is some hint that the results may be educationally meaningful and may substantiate the findings of Tuan. For this reason, the authors will broaden the study in the second phase to another 64 students to determine whether results might be more generalizable.

George Sirrakos, M.S. Ed., Science & Mathematics Education Centre, Curtin University of Technology (gs1404@gmail.com)
Christopher Emdin, PhD, Teachers College, Columbia University (emdin@me.com)
Cogenerative Dialoguing as a Tool to Increase Full Student Participation in the Urban Biology Classroom

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of cogenerative dialogues as a means of increasing student participation, motivation, and engagement in urban biology classrooms. With two groups of students, who were taught the same learning goals by the same teacher, one group participated in cogenerative dialogues, and the other group did not. Data was collected from both classrooms by documenting the content and impact of the cogenerative dialogues, and an analysis of class video recordings to tally the number of interactions and transactions occurred. Findings revealed that students in the cogenerative dialogue group showed a significant increase in active class participation and a decrease in classroom disruptions, whereas the frequency of these events changed little in the group not engaged in cogenerative dialogues. We discuss the implications of these findings for the body of evidence on the effectiveness of employing cogenerative dialogues as a classroom support strategy to teach science to traditionally marginalized students and on addressing achievement gaps.

Thomas Lord, Indiana University of Pennsylvania (trlord@iup.edu)
Developing the Visio-Spatial Aptitude of Biology Students

ABSTRACT: Being able to control a mental image of an event is an important aptitude for individuals in a science discipline. Many of the events performed by scientist in every-day activities involve the manipulating, rotating and juxtapositioning a cognitive image whether it's a chemical formula, serially sliced section or topographic field view. It's been argued that the aptitude is innate and can't be taught but several important studies have found the ability greatly improved when carefully controlled interventions are administered to students. This study found that first year college students in a experimental population improved significantly in spatial ability when compared to a similar population of students in a college science class. Teachers need to create exercises that will enhance spatial aptitude in all students especially those destined for a science career. As biology teachers, its important they understand the importance visuo-spatial ability plays in the future of their students. 

Special guest: Recipient of the 2011 Research in Biology Education Award: Erin Baumgartner, Division of Natural Sciences, Western Oregon University
Toward a Better Biology Experience for Non-majors

BIOGRAPHY: Dr. Erin Baumgartner has a BA in Biology from the University of Kansas and a PhD in Zoology from the University of Hawaii-Manoa. She became engaged in science education research after being awarded an NSF graduate K-12 teaching (GK-12) fellowship at UHM and later served as a Co-PI on a subsequent NSF GK-12 grant. Dr. Baumgartner is the coordinator of the Biology 100 series for non-majors at Western Oregon University and also teaches Honors Biology for non-majors and Biology for Educators