2023 NABT Biology Education Research Symposium

Friday, November 3, 2023, in Baltimore, Maryland

Presentations for the 14th Annual NABT Biology Education Research Symposium were accepted through a double-blind peer-review process that was open to biology educators and researchers at all levels. The NABT Four-Year University & College Section Research Committee Co-Chairs were Ben England, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, and William Heyborne, Southern Utah University, Cedar City, UT.

We extend a special thank you to our reviewers for their time and detailed feedback.

2023 Presentations

Instructional Strategies in AP Science Classes: A Systematic Literature Review

Robin Bulleri & Soonhye Park, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC

ABSTRACT: Instructional Strategies in AP Science Classes: A Systematic Literature Review Robin Bulleri & Soonhye Park, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC The Advanced Placement (AP) program provides an opportunity for students to learn rigorous, college-level content while they are in high school. In addition, it provides financial benefit as students can earn college credit with a qualifying score on the end of course exam (Kolluri, 2018). The College Board, who designs the AP courses and exams, aims to increase both access and equity in the AP program. Consequently, in the past two decades, the number of students who take an AP course has doubled, to nearly three million (Saavedra et al., 2021). Despite recent efforts to expand both equity and access to AP courses, however, significant gaps remain in both areas. Historically, high-income schools offered more AP courses than low-income schools. Due to dramatic financial support from federal, state, and local governments, 90% of students now attend a school offering at least one AP course (Long et al., 2019). However, gatekeeping practices such as prerequisite mathematics and science courses like chemistry, algebra II, and precalculus create barriers to AP science courses which, in turn, yield student populations that are less diverse than introductory courses (Kolluri, 2018). Further, quality AP programs require effective teachers along with support from school and district (Long et al., 2019). In particular, given the close relationship between teachers’ instructional practices and student learning outcomes (Hattie, 2012; Liou, 2021), understanding how AP courses are delivered in classrooms is imperative to better support AP teachers to implement effective teaching approaches that will promote science learning for all students from diverse backgrounds. In this regard, this review study aims to identify and characterize instructional strategies implemented in AP science courses for biology, chemistry, environmental science (APES), and physics, that are featured in research articles about AP courses published for the past ten years using a systematic approach to literature review. In addition, this review aims to identify instructional strategies that are empirically supported to contribute to student learning outcomes in AP science courses.

How Should I Write Exam Questions: An Investigation into How Different Framings of Exam Questions in Biology Classes Can Influence Student Performance and Attitudes

Jeremy Hsu, Noelle Clark, Kate Hill, Melissa Rowland-Goldsmith, Chapman University, Orange, CA

ABSTRACT: Quizzes and exams are nearly ubiquitous across both K-12 and college biology courses, with such assessments often playing major roles in determining student success and persistence in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). However, little work has explored how the framing of assessment questions may influence student performance and affect, despite past work showing that small changes in questions can have large impacts. For instance, personalizing questions with students’ interests (i.e., grounding scenarios in students’ academic and extracurricular topics relevant to students) can increase motivation and learning (e.g., Awofala 2014; Bernacki & Walkington 2014; D’Agata 2015; Ku & Sullivan 2001; Melsky 2021). However, this past work has primarily been done in the context of math, physics, and engineering courses, and we are not aware of any work examining the influence of how questions are worded in biology classes on student performance or affect.

Here, we explore question framing in scenario-based constructed-response questions where students read real scenarios and predict results in the context of an undergraduate introductory molecular genetics course. These authentic assessments mimic real-world application since students think critically about open-ended tasks (Koh 2017; Wiggins 2019). We also situate our work in discourse comprehension (Van Dijk & Kintsch 1983). Under this theory (also known as construction-integration), students must build both a textbase and situation model when reading a new scenario. The textbase represents a basic understanding of the language used and contains only minimal levels of inferences, while the situation model represents more complex mental representations (Graesser & Zwaan 1995; Gunel et al. 2009; Kintsch 1986; Van Dijk & Kintsch 1983).

Do the Benefits of Collaborative Group Exams Extend Beyond Just Improved Student Learning?

Jillian Arzoumanian, University of Tampa, Tampa, FL; Suann Yang, SUNY-Geneseo, Geneseo, NY; Michelle Roux-Osovitz, Jeffrey Grim University of Tampa, Tampa, FL

ABSTRACT: Modern pedagogical approaches are adapted to facilitate student-centered learning to promote engagement and interpersonal skills. Collaborative group exams (CGEs) allow students to work together in collective peer groups after first attempting an assessment individually. The implementation of CGEs should convert exam-style assessments into learning opportunities focused on improving performance and learning.

Students seek an educational experience that will aid in achieving their academic, professional, and personal goals. Consequently, career readiness competencies were developed to provide students with the necessary resources employers look for, and increasing attention is given to promoting student well-being and a sense of belonging.

This study explores the effects of large-scale adoption of CGEs on student performance, learning, and group dynamics across all levels of a biology curriculum at a medium-sized private university, with quantitative and qualitative data recorded from 834 individual students. Our data indicate students at all levels benefit from CGEs, improving exam performance (by 44%) and perceived learning through positive group dynamics and peer interactions, which likely assist students’ career preparation and promote student retention. Therefore, we recommend CGEs to all educators, especially those teaching biology, to ensure students’ academic achievement, career readiness, and overall well-being both in and out of the classroom.

Causal Mechanisms Behind Changing Minds About Evolution Using Cultural Competence

Jamie Jensen, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT; Morgan Meyers, University of Georgia-Athens, Athens, GA; Jonathan Hodson, Dalton Bourne, Noah Emery Brigham Young University, Provo, UT

ABSTRACT: It has now been established that religious culturally competent strategies for evolution education (ReCCEE, Barnes & Brownell, 2017) can be successful. We have developed a ReCCEE strategy, which we refer to as the Reconciliation Model (RM), that appears to be successful in a variety of settings and religious affiliations in overcoming barriers to evolution acceptance, specifically among Judeo-Christian audiences (e.g., Ferguson & Jensen, 2021; Lindsay et
al., 2019). Although some of the factors that influence acceptance have been studied, including religiosity (Glaze & Goldston, 2015; Rissler, et al., 2014), perceived conflict (Barnes et al., 2021), understanding the nature of science (Glaze & Goldston, 2015), and sometimes knowledge (see Dunk et al., 2017), very little is known about the causal mechanisms directly underlying this specific ReCCEE model (the RM). In this presentation, we will share the results of a combined analysis of nationwide survey data with classroom interventions that shed light on the potential causal mechanisms behind the RM.

Special Guest Presenter: Stanley Lo, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, Recipient of the 2023 NABT Four-Year College Section Research in Biology Education Award

Examining variations in undergraduate student conceptions of research and approaches to problem solving in biological sciences through phenomenography

ABSTRACT: Research experiences and development of problem-solving skills play critical roles in undergraduate biology education. Here, we report two studies using phenomenography as a methodology to examine variations in undergraduate student (1) conceptions of research and (2) approaches to problem solving in biological sciences. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews, in which participants (1) articulated how their perception of successful researchers changed based on their research experiences or (2) described their problem-solving processes while working on biology problems. Three conceptions of successful researchers were identified based on variations within the following aspects: process of research, interactions with other researchers, and scope of contribution. After research experiences, participants reported conceptions with more nuanced understanding that successful researchers demonstrate proactive engagement, collaboration, and contribution. Through the lens of situated cognition, we consider problem solving as a learning phenomenon that involves the interactions between internal cognition of the learner and the external learning environment. We identified five aspects of problem solving, including knowledge, strategy, intention, metacognition, and mindset, that define three qualitatively different approaches to problem solving, with each approach being distinguishable by variations across the aspects. We discuss implications for how these characterizations can support undergraduate research experiences and development of problem-solving skills.