Development of Teaching Methods to Improve Undergraduate Student Understanding of Experimental Design and Application of Science Concepts to Everyday Life

This project aims to serve the national interest by developing better teaching methods and assessment tools to improve understanding of experimental design in undergraduate biology students. The natural sciences, including biology, are based on use of empirical evidence, especially collected from controlled experiments. Students who graduate from undergraduate programs in biology should have a solid understanding of experimental design and the logic behind controlled experiments.

Arguably, all university-educated people should have some understanding of the process of science, represented by understanding the role of experimental evidence. Furthermore, evidence from multiple disciplines, such as cognitive psychology and discipline-based education research, has led to the hypothesis that if a person understands experimental design, they may be able to apply those skills to their everyday lives, demonstrating achievement of an important goal in science education, known as scientific literacy.

The goal of this project is to develop better methods of assessing understanding of controlled experiments, to develop better methods of assessing specific scientific literacy skills, and to develop better methods of teaching about experimental design in undergraduate-level introductory biology, in both lecture and lab course components. This work represents possible forward momentum across disciplines and will allow hypotheses from the learning sciences to be tested in undergraduate biology classrooms.

A guiding hypothesis of this project is that improved metacognitive skills will allow improved experimental design skills. This work may also benefit teaching in other natural science disciplines at the undergraduate level and possibly benefit teaching for primary and secondary students.

An initial goal of the project is to gather rich data on understanding of experimental design through interviews of beginner and experienced undergraduate students, as well as expert faculty. These data will be used to develop better tools for assessment and teaching of experimental design. A second, parallel aspect of the project will be to collect baseline data from all students in undergraduate introductory biology, lecture and lab, at a diverse institution of higher education.

Experimental design skill and a scientific literacy skill will be measured through standard instruments, that involve written explanations based on scientific scenarios. Using interview data as well as data from the baseline course, an intervention will be designed for introductory biology, interwoven throughout the lecture and lab, to support metacognitive skill development, in support of experimental design skills.

The hypothesis that improved experimental design skills may show transfer to a scientific literacy skill will also be tested. The intervention will be conducted across all course sections of introductory biology for two subsequent academic years, allowing generation of an adequate sample for statistical analysis, including multiple linear regression.

The intervention will be designed to be flexible and adaptable, with much thought placed in how the intervention could be deployed in classrooms at various institutions. The project will also support a faculty learning community, to support faculty buy-in and collaboration. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students.

Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.