The Current Insights feature is designed to introduce life-science educators and researchers to current articles of interest in other social science and education journals. In this installment, I highlight recent large-scale studies from the K-12 literature that can inform undergraduate teaching. The first characterizes how the sense of belonging can influence whether students offer their ideas during class. The second explores the how instructor-student relationships can be leveraged to improve teaching. The third explores whether rubrics or exemplars are better at helping students develop quality feedback on their own writing.

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) offer an expanding avenue to engage students in real-world scientific practices. Increasingly, CUREs are instructed by graduate teaching assistants (TAs), yet TAs may be underprepared to facilitate and face unique barriers when teaching CUREs. Consequently, unless TAs are provided professional development (PD) and resources to teach CUREs effectively, they and their students may not reap the assumed benefits of CURE instruction. Here, we describe three perspectives – that of the CURE TA, the CURE designer/facilitator, and the CURE student – that are collectively intended to inform the development of tentative components of CURE TA PD. We compare these perspectives to previous studies in the literature in an effort to identify commonalities across all sources and offer potential insights for advancing CURE TA PD efforts across a diversity of institutional environments. We propose that the most effective CURE TA PD programs will promote the use of CURE-specific instructional strategies as benchmarks for guiding change in teaching practices and should focus on three major elements: 1) enhancement of research and teaching acumen, 2) development of effective and inclusive mentoring practices, and 3) identification and understanding of the factors that make CUREs a unique learning experience.

The purpose of this paper is to present an argument for why there is a need to re-envision the underlying culture of undergraduate biology education to ensure the success, retention, and matriculation of Black students. The basis of this argument is the continued noted challenges with retaining Black students in the biological sciences coupled with existing research that implicates science contexts (i.e., the cultural norms, values, and beliefs manifesting through policies and practices) as being the primary source of the challenges experienced by Black students that lead to their attrition. In presenting this argument, we introduce the Re-Envisioning Culture Network, a multigenerational, interdisciplinary network comprised of higher education administrators, faculty, staff, Black undergraduate students majoring in biology, Black cultural artists, community leaders, and STEM professionals to work together to curate and generate resources and tools that will facilitate change. In introducing the REC Network and disseminating its mission and ongoing endeavors, we generate a clarion call for educators, researchers, STEM professionals, students, and the broader community to join us in this endeavor in fostering transformative change.

Evolution is foundational to understanding biology, yet learners at all stages have incomplete and incorrect ideas that persist beyond graduation. Contextual features of prompts (e.g., taxon of organism, acquisition vs. loss of traits, etc.) have been shown to influence both the learning process and the ideas students express in explanations of evolutionary processes. In this study, we compare students’ explanations of natural selection for humans versus a nonhuman animal (cheetah) at different times during biology instruction. We found “taxon” to be a significant predictor of the content of students’ explanations. Responses to “cheetah” prompts contained a larger number and diversity of key concepts (e.g., variation, heritability, differential reproduction) and fewer naïve ideas (e.g., need, adapt) when compared with responses to an isomorphic prompt containing “human” as the organism. Overall, instruction increased the prevalence of key concepts, reduced naïve ideas, and caused a modest reduction in differences due to taxon. Our findings suggest that the students are reasoning differently about evolutionary processes in humans as compared with nonhuman animals, and that targeted instruction may both increase students’ facility with key concepts while reducing their susceptibility to contextual influences.

Explaining biological phenomena requires understanding how different processes function and describing interactions between components at various levels of organization over time and space in biological systems. This is a desired competency yet is a complicated and often challenging task for undergraduate biology students. Therefore, we need a better understanding of their integrated knowledge regarding important biological concepts. Informed by the theory of knowledge integration and mechanistic reasoning, in this qualitative case study, we elicited and characterized knowledge networks of nine undergraduate biology students. We investigated students’ conceptions of and the various ways they connect three fundamental subsystems in biology: 1) gene regulation, 2) cell–cell communication, and 3) phenotypic expression. We found that only half of the conceptual questions regarding the three subsystems were answered correctly by the majority of students. Knowledge networks tended to be linear and unidirectional, with little variation in the types of relationships displayed. Students did not spontaneously express mechanistic connections, mainly described undefined, cellular, and macromolecular levels of organization, and mainly discussed unspecified and intracellular localizations. These results emphasize the need to support students’ understanding of fundamental concepts, and promoting knowledge integration in the classroom could assist students’ ability to understand biological systems.

While several studies have investigated gender inequities in the social learning environment of biology lecture courses, that same phenomenon remains largely unexplored in biology laboratory contexts. We conducted a mixed methods study to understand the influence of gender on student perceptions of their peers’ research aptitude in introductory biology CUREs and traditional laboratory courses. Specifically, students (N = 125) were asked to complete a name generator survey at three time points across the semester. This survey asked students to list the names of peers whom they viewed as “most proficient” in the course investigations and to justify their choice via an open-ended response prompt. Using social network analysis, exponential random graph modeling (ERGM), and thematic analysis, we demonstrate that student gender identity did not influence nomination behaviors in CURE or traditional laboratory courses. However, the ERGMs reveal the presence of a popularity effect in CUREs and demonstrate that mutual nominations were more prevalent in traditional laboratory courses. Our qualitative data further provide insights into the reasons students nominated peers as proficient in CURE and traditional courses.

The Research Experiences in Marine Science (REMS) Program is a Hawai’i place-based CURE (course-based undergraduate research experience) for late high school and early undergraduate students wherein students conduct independent research that draws upon the history, culture, and ecosystem of their local communities. In addition to providing meaningful access to marine science education and training, REMS addresses a fear of failure expressed by students who view their culture and personal identity as incompatible with undergraduate science pathways. Data about student attitudes toward and conceptualizations of science and scientists were collected through pre- and postprogram open-ended survey items, Draw-a-Scientist Tests, and postprogram interviews. Results suggest the combination of place-based elements and an authentic research experience shifted students’ conceptualization of scientists to a “humanized” construct. The emergence of this theme coincided with students recognizing themselves as scientists, gaining confidence in content understanding and research skills, increasing interest in science as a career pathway, and recognizing how science affects their communities. This study demonstrates how a CURE that emphasizes the cultural relevance of science, an inclusive conceptualization of a “scientist”, and contextualized role of “failure” in science, may contribute to historically marginalized students recognizing themselves as scientists and ultimately persisting in science careers.

Hispanic/Latinx young adults remain significantly underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, yet the role families play in these young adults’ trajectories in STEM is still underexamined. The purpose of this study was to examine the relational supports and constraints that Hispanic/Latinx college students in STEM majors experienced with their parents as they moved through college and transitioned into their first year of graduate school or full-time employment. Two rounds of interviews were conducted with 18 Hispanic/Latinx young adults who were part of an undergraduate STEM program at a Hispanic-majority university. Most of the study participants reported benefiting from immense emotional support from their parents; however, this emotional support was often simultaneously coupled with home–school value conflicts and a dynamic we call “conversational constraints.” Results from this study point to important interventions involving family that might improve the rates of participation of Hispanic/Latinx students from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds in STEM fields.

Active-learning pedagogies often require group work. We tested aspects of forming groups in a nonmajors Biology class. We asked whether large or small groups affected student learning outcomes and attitudes towards working in groups. We placed students in groups of three or six and students stayed in their groups for the term. We measured learning outcomes using a pre/postassessment as well as two-stage exams. Attitudes towards working in groups were measured using a previously published pre/post survey and an exit survey. We found that students in large groups did better on group exams and large groups had higher highest scores on the individual part of two-stage exams. Group size had no effect on students’ postassessment scores or attitudes towards working in groups. We next assigned students to permanent or nonpermanent groups. We used the same metrics as the group size experiment. Students in permanent groups had higher group exam scores and better attitudes towards working in groups. Group permanence had no effect on students’ postassessment scores. Students preferred working in permanent groups due to positive group interactions that developed over the quarter. Optimal group size and permanence are likely context-specific and dependent on the types of group work used in class.

Science advances through the interplay of idea construction and idea critique. Our goal was to describe varied forms of productive disciplinary engagement that emerged during primary literature discussions. Such descriptions are necessary for biology educators and researchers to design for and recognize diverse repertoires of participation in the critique and discussion of primary scientific literature. We identified three cases (a lower-division ecology course, an upper-division organismal course, and a journal club embedded in a summer research program) that were each designed with weekly primary literature discussions. We analyzed 12 discussions (four from each case) to describe what postsecondary students attend to when they critique and what forms of participation emerged from students reading and discussing primary scientific literature. Students participated in critique in all three cases and patterns in the substance and framing of critiques reflected the level of the context (lower- or upper-division). Students also shaped how they participated in ways that were relevant to the science classroom communities in each case. Our findings suggest that structuring primary literature discussions in ways that both elevate and connect students’ agency and personal relevance is important for fostering varied forms of productive disciplinary engagement within a science classroom community.

Student–study behaviors and metacognition are predictors of student-academic success. However, student metacognitive evaluation of their own study habit behavior use has been largely unexplored. To address this gap, we gave students enrolled in three different Biology courses (n = 1140) a survey that asked them to identify the study behaviors used to prepare for their first and third exams and to appraise the effectiveness of each behavior. We observed that, across all courses, students used different counts of active- and passive-study behaviors. However, there were no differences in performance across courses, and the use of effective (i.e., active) study behaviors resulted in improved exam performance for all students, regardless of course, while the use of ineffective (i.e., passive) study behaviors had no significant impact on exam performance. Finally, our qualitative analysis revealed that students across all courses demonstrated similar ability in identifying effective-study behaviors, but students could not explain why those behaviors were effective. Taken together, our study demonstrates that students use various study behaviors to prepare for exams without understanding their effectiveness. We encourage instructors to structure their courses to promote the development of metacognitive evaluation and effective-study behaviors.

Undergraduate research and laboratory experiences provide a wide range of benefits to student learning in science and are integral to imbed authentic research experiences in biology labs. While the benefit of courses with research experience is widely accepted, it can be challenging to measure conceptual research skills in a quick and easily scalable manner. We developed a card-sorting task to differentiate between novice and expert conceptualization of research principles. There were significant differences in the way faculty/postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduate students organized their information, with faculty/postdocs more likely to use deep feature sorting patterns related to research approach. When provided scaffolding of group names reflecting expert-like organization, participant groups were better able to sort by that organization, but undergraduate students did not reach expert levels. Undergraduates with Advanced Placement experience were more likely to display expert-like thinking than undergraduates without Advanced Placement Biology experience and non-PEER (persons excluded because of their Ethnicity or Race) students displayed more expert-like thinking than PEER students. We found evidence of undergraduates in various stages of development toward expert-like thinking in written responses. This card-sorting task can provide a framework for analyzing student’s conceptualizations of research and identify areas to provide added scaffolding to help shift from novice-like to expert-like thinking.

Effective communication about science is a core skill undergraduates should learn, but little research has explored how students communicate about culturally controversial science topics. In this study, we explored how Black undergraduate science students took on the role of science communicators in their communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. We interviewed 23 Black students about their experiences learning about COVID-19 vaccines and communicating about COVID-19 vaccines to their communities. We found that students’ racial/ethnic and science backgrounds made them feel a responsibility to be effective communicators about COVID-19 vaccines as potential trusted messengers within their communities. However, students were using limited strategies when communicating and were unsure how to communicate about COVID-19 topics effectively to those who were vaccine-hesitant or doubted the severity of the pandemic. Finally, students described ways that their biology instructors could have helped them be more confident when communicating about COVID-19 vaccines with their communities. Findings suggest that biology instructors could teach science communication principles in addition to content knowledge about culturally controversial science topics in their undergraduate classes to build on students’ developing science communication skills.

Graduate students often face choices about which resources to use to help them succeed in their programs. These choices likely differ among students, in part, due to different perceptions of resource value. However, little is known about why particular resources might be considered highly valuable to students, thus driving choice. Utilizing expectancy-value theory for help sources as our theoretical framework, this qualitative study explored life science (LS) graduate students’ top three resource choices, their explanations about why they made those choices, and whether students’ perceptions of value differed among resources and across demographic groups. We addressed two research questions: 1) What resources do LS graduate students consider to be the most important? 2) What drives LS graduate students’ perceptions of resource value? Many participants indicated that ‘advisor’ and ‘academic stipend’ were most important. Student perceptions of value were driven by their perceptions of which needs resources fulfilled, such as basic needs, academic help, or support. Participants’ top resource choices and underlying values of those resources did not differ among demographic groups. We propose a model for understanding graduate student resource choice that may inform future work on student outcomes.

Nearly all undergraduate biology courses rely on quizzes and exams. Despite their prevalence, very little work has been done to explore how the framing of assessment questions may influence student performance and affect. Here, we conduct a quasi-random experimental study where students in different sections of the same course were given isomorphic questions that varied in their framing of experimental scenarios. One section was provided a description using the self-referential term “you”, placing the student in the experiment; another section received the same scenario that used classmate names; while a third section's scenario integrated counterstereotypical scientist names. Our results demonstrate that there was no difference in performance throughout the semester between the sections, nor were there differences in students’ self-reported stress and identity. However, students in all three sections indicated that they most preferred the self-referential framing, providing a variety of reasons that suggest that these variants may influence how well a student reads and processes the question. In addition, our results also indicate that the framing of these scenarios can also have a large impact on some students’ affect and attitude toward the question. We conclude by discussing implications for the biology education research community and biology instructors.

Students’ beliefs about their abilities (called “lay theories”) affect their motivations, behaviors, and academic success. Lay theories include beliefs about the potential to improve intelligence (mindset), who (i.e., everyone or only some people) has the potential to be excellent in a field (universality), and whether reaching excellence in a field requires raw intellectual talent (brilliance). Research demonstrates that each of these beliefs influences students’ educational experiences and academic outcomes. However, it remains unclear whether they represent distinct latent constructs or are susceptible to the “jangle fallacy” (i.e., different names given to the same underlying construct). We conducted a multiphase, mixed-methods study to 1) evaluate whether mindset, universality, and brilliance beliefs represent conceptually and empirically discriminable concepts, and 2) evaluate whether mindset, universality, and brilliance beliefs contribute unique explanatory value for both psychosocial (e.g., sense of belonging) and academic outcomes (e.g., course grades). To address these questions, we developed and collected validity evidence for a new measure of science and math undergraduates’ lay theories, called the Undergraduate Lay Theories of Abilities (ULTrA) survey. Factor analyses suggest that mindset, brilliance, and universality are distinct and empirically discriminable constructs. Structural Equation Models indicate that each lay theory contributes unique predictive value to relevant outcomes.

Understanding the experiences of Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (NHPI) students in science courses can help us foster inclusivity and belonging for these often excluded and unacknowledged students. Using social influence theory as a framework, we investigated the intersection between ethnic-racial identity and science identity in NHPI students to better understand their experiences in undergraduate Biology courses. We collected both quantitative and qualitative data and used concurrent triangulation design in our mixed-methods approach. Quantitative data include measures of student pre- and post-course science identity, self-efficacy, alignment with science values, sense of belonging, environmental concern, strength of ethnic-racial identity, and the interaction between ethnic-racial and science identity. We measured environmental concern because NHPI cultures often have strong connections with the environment that may overlap well with environmental science values. Qualitative data included short responses to survey questions that asked students to describe the interaction between their science identity and their ethnicity. We found that NHPI and non-NHPI students do not significantly differ in any construct we measured, nor do they experience different gains across a semester when comparing pre- and post-scores. We also found that NHPI students’ feelings concerning the intersection of their ethnic and science identities are varied and complex, with some students expressing feelings of conflict and many others expressing a strengthening relationship between those identities. We discuss implications for instructors and encourage them to acknowledge the community culture of wealth NHPI students bring to the classroom because of their ethnic-racial identities.

Researchers who study student acceptance of evolution rely on surveys that are designed to measure evolution acceptance. It is important for these surveys to measure evolution acceptance accurately and in isolation from other constructs, so that researchers can accurately determine what leads to low acceptance. The Inventory of Student Evolution Acceptance (I-SEA) and the Generalized Acceptance of EvolutioN Evaluation (GAENE) are two surveys that were developed to improve upon the limitations of earlier surveys. Yet neither survey has been extensively tested for response process validity, which can assess the extent to which students use constructs other than their acceptance of evolution to answer survey items. In this study, we examined the response-process validity of the I-SEA and GAENE by conducting cognitive interviews with 60 undergraduate students. Interviews revealed that both surveys retain certain response-process issues. The I-SEA conflated knowledge about and acceptance of evolution for a subset of students. The GAENE measured evolution acceptance inconsistently because students interpreted “evolution” in different ways; it also measured willingness to advocate for evolution in addition to acceptance. Researchers can use these findings to better inform their survey choice when designing future studies, and to further improve the measurement of evolution acceptance.

Despite the existent gender parity in undergraduate biology degree attainment, gendered differences in outcomes are prevalent in introductory biology courses. Less is known about whether these disparities persist at the upper-division level, after most attrition is assumed to have occurred. Here, we report the consistent presence of gender equity gaps across 35 offerings (10 years) of a large-enrollment upper-division biology course at a research-intensive public university. Multilevel modeling showed that women's grades were lower than men's, regardless of prior GPA. These gender gaps were present even when controlling for students’ race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, first-generation college-going status, international status, and transfer status. Class size, gender representation in the classroom, and instructor gender did not significantly relate to course grades. Student questionnaires in a subset of offerings indicated gendered differences in course anxiety, science identity, and science self-efficacy, which correlated with grade outcomes. These results suggest that women experience differential outcomes in upper-division biology, which may negatively influence their persistence in STEM fields postgraduation. Our findings suggest that gender disparities are a systemic problem throughout the undergraduate biology degree and underscore the need for further examination and transformation of upper-division courses to support all students, even at late stages of their degrees.

Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) are attractive solutions for scaling undergraduate research experiences at primarily undergraduate teaching institutions, where resources for faculty research activities can be limited. The Sustainable Interdisciplinary Research to Inspire Undergraduate Success (SIRIUS) project is a unique program that integrates CUREs, coordinated around a local real-world problem, throughout a biology department’s curricula. The CUREs are scaffolded to provide all biology majors with multiple opportunities to engage in scientific investigations as they advance through introductory, intermediate, and advanced courses. In this mixed methods, cross-sectional study, we explore students’ perceptions of the authenticity of their experiences as they progress through the SIRIUS CUREs. Triangulated data collected from two instruments indicated that students in advanced courses recognized more involvement in research activities and perceived greater authenticity in the science they were performing compared with introductory and intermediate students. Intermediate and advanced students perceived more opportunities for independence; however, experiences with failure and the influence these experiences had on the perceptions of authenticity was primarily observed with advanced students. This study contributes to the growing literature on CUREs with a focus on students from a primarily undergraduate institution with multiple minority-serving designations.

Concerns regarding students’ difficulties with the concept of energy date back to the 1970s. They become particularly apparent for systems involving adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which plays a central role in maintaining the nonequilibrium state of biological systems and in driving energetically unfavorable processes. One of the most well-documented misconceptions related to ATP is the idea that breaking bonds releases energy, when the opposite is true. This misconception is often attributed to language used in biology referring to the “high-energy bonds” in ATP. We interviewed chemistry, biology, and biochemistry instructors to learn how they think about and teach the mechanism(s) by which ATP is used as an energy source in biological systems. Across 15 interviews, we found that instructors relied primarily on two mechanisms to explain the role of ATP: 1) energy release, focused on ATP hydrolysis and bond energies; and/or 2) energy transfer, focused on phosphorylation and common intermediates. Many instructors shared negative and uncomfortable experiences related to teaching ATP and energy release. Based on these findings, we suggest instructional strategies that: 1) aim to ease the concerns expressed by introductory biology instructors, and 2) emphasize the role of ATP so as to support students’ understanding of molecular mechanisms.

Although Hispanic population is growing rapidly, Latino students earn fewer STEM degrees than their peers. Therefore, it is mandatory to implement strategies that improve STEM retention and graduation rates for Hispanic students. There is little research about the ways in which multicampus collaborative CUREs combined with additional academic support, affect low-income, Hispanic students and none that focus solely on Puerto Rican students in STEM. Puerto Rico (PR) has a 99% Hispanic population; thus, it is imperative to include PR in education research literature. This study sought to examine the impacts of the Research for Improved Student Experiences (RISE) in STEM program at two campuses of the Inter American University of Puerto Rico. The program included multicampus collaborative CUREs, academic advising, and peer mentoring using quasi-experimental design. Impact assessment included psychosocial metrics such as self-efficacy, science identity and sense of belonging in a pre/posttest design. These findings were triangulated with the differences between treatment and control for retention, pass rate, and course grades. The findings revealed statistically significant improvements on all metrics. This study’s findings support multicampus collaborative CUREs, academic advising, and peer mentoring as useful and effective strategies for improving outcomes for low-income Hispanic students in Puerto Rico.

The CUNY Research Scholars Program (CRSP) has provided year-long mentored research experiences for 1678 associate's degree STEM students since 2014. The pluralities (32%) of mentors, all of whom are full-time faculty, have been biologists. Other represented disciplines include, but are not limited to, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, environmental science, linguistics, and psychology. The research experiences take place at all 10 associate's degree-granting colleges within the City University of New York system. Our previous assessment demonstrated that CRSP students are significantly more likely than their counterparts in a matched sample to remain in STEM programs, graduate, transfer to research intensive institutions, and report a stronger sense of belonging in college. The Covid-19 pandemic challenged the program, as colleges shuttered laboratories and other facilities. Some mentors worried that lab-based research experiences would not be possible under such conditions. The first full-year pandemic cohort, however, demonstrated the resilience of the program and its participants. To assess the ongoing impact of CRSP and how it adapted using new modalities, we interviewed college-based directors, surveyed students and mentors, and held focus groups with mentors. Directors described how their colleges adapted to preserve all prepandemic components of the program. Mentors detailed their strategies for engaging students in authentic research experiences in virtual and other formats. Students reported that, along with scientific and technical skills, the program deepened their self-confidence and prepared them for transfer to baccalaureate programs. Our findings show how virtual platforms can be utilized to preserve the most beneficial aspects of undergraduate research experiences for associate's degree students.

Random call has been proposed as an inclusive and equitable practice that engages students in learning. However, this inclusion may come with a cost. In some contexts, students experience anxiety and distress when being called on. Recently, focus has shifted to critical components of random call that may mitigate this cost. We examined how community college (CC) students perceive being called on by addressing 1) benefits that help their learning and 2) characterizing the anxiety students experience through this practice. To do this, we surveyed students in six biology courses taught by six faculty members over six academic quarters. We analyzed survey responses from 383 unique students (520 total responses) using mixed methods. Qualitative responses were coded and consensus codes revealed that students saw benefits to being called on, including paying attention and coming prepared. Qualitative codes also revealed different types of anxiety, both distress and eustress. Analysis of Likert scale survey data revealed perceptions of increased student interaction with their peers in warm random call classes. Furthermore, warm random call may increase participation in class discussions, and it is not correlated with increased extreme anxiety. These data suggest warm random call used in smaller, community college classes, may contribute to students' positive perceptions of being called on.