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 three diverse research studies: one exploring what researchers actually mean when they talk about relevance; one describing the relationships between instructor mindset about intelligence and performance gaps in the classroom; and the last describing a novel short intervention to reduce student’s perceptions of costs.

There has been a recent push for greater collaboration across the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in discipline-based education research (DBER). The DBER fields are unique in that they require a deep understanding of both disciplinary content and educational research. DBER scholars are generally trained and hold professional positions in discipline-specific departments. The professional societies with which DBER scholars are most closely aligned are also often discipline specific. This frequently results in DBER researchers working in silos. At the same time, there are many cross-cutting issues across DBER research in higher education, and DBER researchers across disciplines can benefit greatly from cross-disciplinary collaborations. This report describes the Breaking Down Silos working meeting, which was a short, focused meeting intentionally designed to foster such collaborations. The focus of Breaking Down Silos was institutional transformation in STEM education, but we describe the ways the overall meeting design and structure could be a useful model for fostering cross-­disciplinary collaborations around other research priorities of the DBER community. We describe our approach to meeting recruitment, premeeting work, and inclusive meeting design. We also highlight early outcomes from our perspective and the perspectives of the meeting participants.

Cognitive science research on learning and instruction is often not directly connected to discipline-based research. In an effort to narrow this gap, this essay integrates research from both fields on five learning and instruction strategies: active retrieval, distributed (spaced) learning, dual coding, concrete examples, and feedback and assessment. These strategies can significantly enhance the effectiveness of science instruction, but they typically do not find their way into the undergraduate classroom. The implementation of these strategies is illustrated through an undergraduate science course for nonmajors called Science in Our Lives. This course provides students with opportunities to use scientific information to solve real-world problems and view science as part of everyday life.

Understanding how students develop biology interests and the roles interest plays in biology contexts could help instructors and researchers to increase science, technology, engineering, and mathematics students’ motivation and persistence. However, it is currently unclear how interest has been defined or measured in the biology education research literature. We analyzed this body of literature to determine how interest has been defined and used by the biology education research community. Specifically, we determined the extent to which previously published work drew on theories that conceptualize interest. Further, we identified studies that measured student interest in biology and characterized the types of measures used. Our findings indicate that biology education researchers typically describe interest as a relationship involving positive feelings between an individual and a physical object, activity, or topic of focus. We also found that interest is often not defined, theories involving interest are not often consulted, and the most common measures of interest only assess a single aspect of the construct. On the basis of these results, we make suggestions for future research seeking to examine biology students’ interest. We hope that this analysis can serve as tool for biology educators to improve their own investigations of students’ interest and measure outcomes of interest-generating educational activities.

One challenge facing students today is high textbook costs, which pose a particularly difficult obstacle at community and technical colleges, where students typically have lower incomes and textbooks constitute a larger proportion of the overall cost of education. To address this, many advocate for using open-source textbooks, which are free in a digital format. However, concerns have been raised about the quality and efficacy of open textbooks. We investigated these concerns by collecting data from general biology classes at four community and technical colleges implementing traditionally published (non-open) and open textbooks. We compared student outcomes, textbook utilization methods, and perceptions of textbooks in these courses. In generalized linear statistical models, book type (open vs. non-open) did not significantly influence measured student outcomes. Additionally, survey results found that students and faculty perceived the open textbook as equal in quality to other textbooks. However, results also suggested that student textbook use did not always align with faculty expectations. For example, 30% of students reported reading their textbooks compared with 85% of faculty expecting students to read the textbook. Finally, faculty who implemented open textbooks expected the textbook to be used more often for reference and review compared with faculty who use traditional textbooks.

Gender gaps in exam scores or final grades are common in introductory college science and engineering classrooms, with women underperforming relative to men with the same admission test scores or college grade point averages. After failing to close a historically documented gender gap in a large introductory biology course using interventions targeted at training a growth mindset, we implemented interventions designed to reduce student test anxiety. We combined evidence-based exercises based on expressive writing and on reappraising physiological arousal. We also used a valid measure to quantify test anxiety at the start and end of the course. This instrument measures an individual’s self-declared or perceived test anxiety—also called trait anxiety—but not the immediate or “state” anxiety experienced during an actual exam. Consistent with previous reports in the literature, we found that women in this population declared much higher test anxiety than men and that students who declared higher test anxiety had lower exam scores than students who declared lower test anxiety. Although the test anxiety interventions had no impact on the level of self-declared trait anxiety, they did significantly increase student exam performance. The treatment benefits occurred in both men and women. These data suggest that 1) a combination of interventions based on expressive writing and reappraising physiological arousal can be a relatively easy manner to boost exam performance in a large-enrollment science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) course and encourage emotion regulation; 2) women are more willing than men to declare that they are anxious about exams, but men and women may actually experience the same level of anxiety during the exam itself; and 3) women are underperforming in STEM courses for reasons other than gender-based differences in mindset or test anxiety.

In this qualitative study, we examined the process of active learning from the perspective of undergraduate students in a high-enrollment introductory biology class. Eight students participated in a series of five interviews throughout the semester that examined their experiences during and after class. Grades were collected for each student at regular time points throughout the semester. Here, we present in-depth case studies of four students who described profoundly different responses to the same in-class learning tasks. We particularly highlight variation in students’ self-reported engagement, as engagement is thought to be a key element of successful active learning. Finally, we map each student’s self-reported engagement and the grades that he or she received. In each case, we found that grades failed to capture some aspects of the active-learning experience that students found important.

We investigated the effects of a laboratory curriculum developed using the socio-­scientific issues (SSI) framework to contextualize scientific and socially relevant issues for students. Using self-determination theory and hierarchical linear modeling, we examined the effects of the SSI curriculum relative to a control curriculum on student motivation in a large introductory biology course for life science majors. The SSI group had a significant increase in motivation for engaging in the laboratory work relative to motivation of the control group. Additionally, the SSI group showed higher levels of more autonomous forms of regulation concerning participation in laboratory tasks compared with the control group. Interestingly, the SSI-based curriculum seemed to have a buffering effect on typically observed decreases in student motivation over the course of a term. This buffering effect could potentially indicate greater self-determination in students experiencing an SSI-based curriculum, which could lead to greater student success and persistence. Qualitative data suggest that this increased motivation of the SSI group relative to the control group is due to enhanced feelings of relatedness experienced by students, likely due to the SSI.

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are an effective way to integrate research into an undergraduate science curriculum and extend research experiences to a large, diverse group of early-career students. We developed a biology CURE at the University of Miami (UM) called the UM Authentic Research Laboratories (UMARL), in which groups of first-year students investigated novel questions and conducted projects of their own design related to the research themes of the faculty instructors. Herein, we describe the implementation and student outcomes of this long-running CURE. Using a national survey of student learning through research experiences in courses, we found that UMARL led to high student self-reported learning gains in research skills such as data analysis and science communication, as well as personal development skills such as self-confidence and self-efficacy. Our analysis of academic outcomes revealed that the odds of students who took UMARL engaging in individual research, graduating with a degree in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) within 4 years, and graduating with honors were 1.5–1.7 times greater than the odds for a matched group of students from UM’s traditional biology labs. The authenticity of UMARL may have fostered students’ confidence that they can do real research, reinforcing their persistence in STEM.

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are often the primary instructors for undergraduate biology laboratories and serve as research mentors in course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). While several studies have explored undergraduate perceptions of CUREs, no previous study has qualitatively described GTAs’ perceptions about teaching CUREs, despite the essential instructional role GTAs play. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe and ascribe meaning to the perceptions that GTAs have regarding benefits and challenges with instructional experiences in introductory biology CUREs. We conducted semistructured interviews with 11 GTAs instructing an introductory biology CURE at a 4-year public university. We found that, while GTAs perceived professional benefits such as experience in research mentoring and postsecondary teaching, they also described challenges, including the time required to instruct a CURE, motivating students to take ownership, and a lack of expertise in mentoring undergraduates about a copepod-based CURE. Feelings of inadequacy in serving as a research mentor and high levels of critical thinking were also cited as perceived issues. We recommend that the greater responsibility and increased time commitment perceived by GTAs in the current study warrants reconsideration by lab coordinators and administrators as to what content and practices should be included in pedagogical training specifically designed for CURE GTAs and how departmental and institutional policies may need to be adapted to better implement CUREs.

In a previous report, we validated that a cohort of first-year undergraduates who participated in a weeklong pre–college engagement STEM Academy (SA) program were retained in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at a higher rate than a matched comparison group (MCG). In addition, SA students yielded increases in science identity and sense of belonging to STEM and to the university. Here, we report the ability to scale the size of the SA program to accommodate more students and replicate the previous findings with two additional cohorts. Longitudinal analysis of the 2015 and 2016 program cohorts demonstrate that both groups were retained to STEM disciplines and the university at higher rates than a MCG. To assess what underlying psychological mechanisms lead to increases in science identity and university belonging, we tested three exploratory models. These models indicate that positive changes in university and STEM belonging indirectly predict an increase in science identity. Further, positive changes in perceived family support indirectly predict increases in university belonging. Thus, through the evaluation of three different cohorts, we found robust evidence that the SA program increases sense of belonging and science identity, and these attitudinal changes promote undergraduate persistence in STEM.

The present studies aimed to advance the measurement and understanding of microaffirmation kindness cues and assessed how they related to historically underrepresented (HU) and historically overrepresented (HO) undergraduate student persistence in science-related career pathways. Study 1 developed and tested the dimensionality of a new Microaffirmations Scale. Study 2 confirmed the two-factor structure of the Microaffirmations Scale and demonstrated that the scale possessed measurement invariance across HU and HO students. Further, the scale was administered as part of a longitudinal design spanning 9 months, with results showing that students’ reported microaffirmations did not directly predict higher intentions to persist in science-related career pathways 9 months later. However, scientific self-efficacy and identity, measures of student integration into the science community, mediated this relationship. Overall, our results demonstrated that microaffirmations can be measured in an academic context and that these experiences have predictive value when they increase students’ integration into their science communities, ultimately resulting in greater intentions to persist 9 months later. Researchers and practitioners can use the Microaffirmations Scale for future investigations to increase understanding of the positive contextual factors that can ultimately help reduce persistence gaps in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics degree attainment.

In this study, we assessed the impact of providing students with short video clips highlighting the relevance of material they are learning in the genetics classroom to their everyday lives. These interesting but non–learning objective oriented clips, referred to as “seductive details,” have been studied extensively in laboratory contexts. In laboratory studies, seductive details have been shown to actually decrease learning, leading some to recommend that any information not directly pertaining to academic learning outcomes be removed from education materials. We aimed to uncover effects of seductive details in an actual college course, in a manner divorced from the confounding variation introduced by instructor-level differences in personality and lecture styles. Our results show that, in a flipped-classroom environment, seductive details do not harm students’ content attainment, interest, or perceived learning, but they are memorable. Students with high background knowledge of genetics reported greater learning after watching videos containing seductive details than students who watched equivalent videos without seductive details, but there was no difference in quiz scores between the groups. These results contradict some of the major effects observed throughout decades of studies conducted in artificial psychology laboratory environments and highlight possible affective benefits of instructors using seductive details.

College science courses aim to teach students both disciplinary knowledge and scientific literacy skills. Several instruments have been developed to assess students’ scientific literacy skills, but few studies have reported how demographic differences may play a role. The goal of this study was to determine whether demographic factors differentially impact students’ scientific literacy skills. We assessed more than 700 students using the Test of Scientific Literacy Skills (TOSLS), a validated instrument developed to assess scientific literacy in college science courses. Interestingly, we found that Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) reading score was the strongest predictor of TOSLS performance, suggesting that fundamental literacy (reading comprehension) is a critical component of scientific literacy skills. Additionally, we found significant differences in raw scientific literacy skills on the basis of ethnicity (underrepresented minority [URM] vs. non-URM), major (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics [STEM] vs. non-STEM), year of college (e.g., senior vs. freshman), grade point average (GPA), and SAT math scores. However, when using multivariate regression models, we found no difference based on ethnicity. These data suggest that students’ aptitude and level of training (based on GPA, SAT scores, STEM or non–STEM major, and year of college) are significantly correlated with scientific literacy skills and thus could be used as predictors for student success in courses that assess scientific literacy skills.

Recent calls for college biology education reform have identified “pathways and transformations of matter and energy” as a big idea in biology crucial for students to learn. Previous work has been conducted on how college students think about such matter-transforming processes; however, little research has investigated how students connect these ideas. Here, we probe student thinking about matter transformations in the familiar context of human weight loss. Our analysis of 1192 student constructed responses revealed three scientific (which we label “Normative”) and five less scientific (which we label “Developing”) ideas that students use to explain weight loss. Additionally, students combine these ideas in their responses, with an average number of 2.19 ± 1.07 ideas per response, and 74.4% of responses containing two or more ideas. These results highlight the extent to which students hold multiple (both correct and incorrect) ideas about complex biological processes. We described student responses as conforming to either Scientific, Mixed, or Developing descriptive models, which had an average of 1.9 ± 0.6, 3.1 ± 0.9, and 1.7 ± 0.8 ideas per response, respectively. Such heterogeneous student thinking is characteristic of difficulties in both conceptual change and early expertise development and will require careful instructional intervention for lasting learning gains.

Given the centrality of data visualizations in communicating scientific information, increased emphasis has been placed on the development of students’ graph literacy—the ability to generate and interpret data representations—to foster understanding of domain-specific knowledge and the successful navigation of everyday life. Despite prior literature that identifies student difficulties and methods to improve graphing competencies, there is little understanding as to how learners develop these skills. To gain a better resolution of the cognitive basis by which individuals “see” graphs, this study uses eye tracking (ET) to compare the strategies of non–science undergraduates (n = 9), early (n = 7) and advanced (n = 8) biology undergraduates, graduate students (n = 6), and science faculty (n = 6) in making sense of data displays. Results highlight variation in how individuals direct their attention (i.e., fixations and visual search patterns) when completing graph-based tasks as a function of science expertise. As research on the transition from novice to expert is crucially important in understanding how we might design curricula that help novices move toward more expert-like performance, this study has implications for the advancement of new strategies to aid the teaching and learning of data analysis skills.

Prior studies have shown that students have difficulty understanding the role of mutation in evolution and genetics. However, little is known about unifying themes underlying students’ difficulty with mutation. In this study, we examined students’ written explanations about mutation from a cognitive science perspective. According to one cognitive perspective, scientific phenomena can be perceived as entities or processes, and the miscategorization of processes as entities can lead to noncanonical ideas about scientific phenomena that are difficult to change. Students’ incorrect categorization of processes as entities is well documented in physics but has not been studied in biology. Unlike other scientific phenomena that have been studied, the word “mutation” refers to both the process causing a change in the DNA and the entity, the altered DNA, making mutation a relevant concept for exploration and extension of this theory. In this study, we show that, even after instruction on mutation, the majority of students provided entity-focused descriptions of mutation in response to a question that prompted for a process-focused description in a lizard or a bacterial population. Students’ noncanonical ideas about mutation occurred in both entity- and process-focused descriptions. Implications for conceptual understanding and instruction are discussed.

Threshold concepts are fundamental to a discipline and, once understood, transform students’ understanding and perception of the subject. Despite the value of threshold concepts as a learning “portal” for heuristic purposes, there is limited empirical evidence of threshold crossing or achieving mastery. As a threshold concept, biological variation within species is fundamental to understanding evolution and provides a target for analyzing threshold crossing. We aimed to 1) examine student understanding of variation using four dimensions of a threshold concept (discursive, troublesome, liminal, and integrative), 2) measure “threshold crossing,” and 3) investigate the utility of the threshold concept framework to curriculum design. We conducted semistructured interviews of 29 students affiliated with a “variation-enriched” curriculum in a cross-sectional design with precurriculum, current, and postcurriculum groups (Pre, Current, and Post) and an outgroup of three postbaccalaureate advanced learners (Outgroup). Interview transcripts revealed that Current students expand their “variation discourse,” while the Post group and Outgroup displayed conformity in word choice about variation. The Post and Current groups displayed less troublesome and more integrative responses. Pre, Post, and Outgroup explanations’ revealed liminality, with discomfort and uncertainty regardless of accuracy. When we combined all four threshold concept dimensions for each respondent, patterns indicative of threshold crossing emerged along with new insight regarding curricular design.

Instruments for teaching and assessing student understanding of the five core concepts in biology from Vision and Change are needed. We developed four Biology Core ­Concept Instruments (BCCIs) that teach and assess students’ ability to describe a concept in their own words, identify concepts represented in biological phenomena, and make connections between concepts. The BCCI includes a narrative, followed by a series of 10 true-false/identify (TF/I) and three open-ended questions. The TF/I questions are aligned with Cary and Branchaw’s Conceptual Elements Framework and were iteratively developed with feedback from biology experts and student performance and feedback obtained during think-aloud interviews. A component scoring system was developed to discriminate between a student’s ability to apply and identify each core concept from his or her ability to make connections between concepts. We field-tested the BCCIs (n = 152–191) with students in a first-year course focused on learning the five core concepts in biology and collected evidence of interrater reliability (α = 0.70) and item validity. With component scoring, we identified examples in which students were able to identify concepts singularly, but not make connections between concepts, or were better able to apply concepts to one biological phenomenon than another. Identifying these nuanced differences in learning can guide instruction to improve students’ conceptual understanding.

Pathways to biomedical careers are not being pursued with equal vigilance among all students. Emerging research shows that historically underrepresented (HU) students who maintain a strong science identity are more likely to persist. However, the influence of social support on persistence is less studied, especially as it relates to science identity among doctoral students. To fill this gap, a 1-year study to assess similarities and differences among 101 HU and majority biomedical doctoral students was conducted to measure the extent to which 1) they report equivalent experiences of social support, science identity, and intentions to persist; 2) their experiences of social support predict intentions to persist 1 year later; and 3) science identity mediates the relationship between social support and intentions to persist in biomedical career pathways. Data were collected using online surveys. Results indicated that science identity significantly mediated the relationship between professional network support and persistence a year later for majority students. In contrast, for HU students, science identity mediated the relationship between instrumental, psychosocial, friend and family support, and persistence a year later. These study results provide evidence that reinforcing mentoring programs and support systems will be beneficial, especially for HU students.

Instructor Talk—noncontent language used by instructors in classrooms—is a recently defined and promising variable for better understanding classroom dynamics. Having previously characterized the Instructor Talk framework within the context of a single course, we present here our results surrounding the applicability of the Instructor Talk framework to noncontent language used by instructors in novel course contexts. We analyzed Instructor Talk in eight additional biology courses in their entirety and in 61 biology courses using an emergent sampling strategy. We observed widespread use of Instructor Talk with variation in the amount and category type used. The vast majority of Instructor Talk could be characterized using the originally published Instructor Talk framework, suggesting the robustness of this framework. Additionally, a new form of Instructor Talk—Negatively Phrased Instructor Talk, language that may discourage students or distract from the learning process—was detected in these novel course contexts. Finally, the emergent sampling strategy described here may allow investigation of Instructor Talk in even larger numbers of courses across institutions and disciplines. Given its widespread use, potential influence on students in learning environments, and ability to be sampled, Instructor Talk may be a key variable to consider in future research on teaching and learning in higher education.