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Full-Text Articles in Education

Establishing Students’ Abilities To Reason With Relationships In The Context Of Cellular Respiration, Sinan F. Akkoseoglu, Joseph Dauer, Heather E. Bergan-Roller May 2016

Establishing Students’ Abilities To Reason With Relationships In The Context Of Cellular Respiration, Sinan F. Akkoseoglu, Joseph Dauer, Heather E. Bergan-Roller

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This study aims to establish the level at which University of Nebraska-Lincoln students reason with simple relationships in the context of cellular respiration at the levels of glycolysis, Krebs cycle, and electron transport chain. These processes are component processes of cellular respiration and each has multiple inputs and outputs. 633 student consented for this study, from which 18 student models were randomly selected, processed, and analyzed. Classroom observations were used to determine structures and relationships that were inputs and outputs to the three processes. In their models, students did not include different numbers of input or outputs when describing glycolysis, …


Assessing Student Comprehension In Introductory Biology: A Comparison Of Free-Response And Multiple-True/False Exam Formats, Macy A. Potts, Brian Couch, Joanna K. Hubbard Apr 2016

Assessing Student Comprehension In Introductory Biology: A Comparison Of Free-Response And Multiple-True/False Exam Formats, Macy A. Potts, Brian Couch, Joanna K. Hubbard

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Question format is an important consideration when designing instruments to gauge student comprehension. In many lecture-style courses, instructors must decide how to effectively test a large group of students. Two common types of question formats used for introductory biology exams are free-response (FR) and multiple-true/false (MTF). FR questions include a question prompt which students respond to with essay-style answers. Conversely, MTF questions include an opening question stem with accompanying statements to be marked as either true or false. The goal of this study was to determine the advantages and disadvantages of FR and MTF question formats for assessing student comprehension …


Computational Modeling Intervention: Using Dynamical Models To Teach Complex Biological Processes, Audrey J. Crowther, Tomáš Helikar, Nicholas Galt, Joseph Dauer, Heather Berganr, Bryan Kowal Apr 2016

Computational Modeling Intervention: Using Dynamical Models To Teach Complex Biological Processes, Audrey J. Crowther, Tomáš Helikar, Nicholas Galt, Joseph Dauer, Heather Berganr, Bryan Kowal

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The Unites States, while being one of the richest countries in the world, ranks 17th in science proficiency out of 31 countries. New techniques for teaching are needed if the US wants to keep up with increasing global competition. Often the problem with traditional methods for teaching biological processes is that they present the material as linear or causal, when in fact there is a much wider network at play. For example, cellular respiration is often represented as a linear process that always starts with glucose and always ends with ATP and water. However, there are several entry and exit …