(
2008 ). Understanding
Randomness and its Impact on Student Learning: Lessons Learned from Building the
Biology Concept Inventory (BCI).
CBE-Life Sciences Education,
Vol. 7,
227-233.
Summary: This article presents some
methodologys developed to research student misconceptions concerning random
processes and their affect on understanding of some dynamics associated with molecular
and evolutionary biology. The need to pursue this was sparked in the context of
developing the Biology Concept Inventory (BCI), an assessment instrument which
attempt to probe conceptual level understanding of a wide range of issues
relevant to the teaching of introductory biology at, primarily, the
undergraduate college level (although the authors indicate that it should also
be applicable to many high school curricula as well). The BCI is modeled after
several other instruments that have been previously developed in other STEM
(science, technology, mathematics and engineering) disciplines; the most well
known and utilized being the FCI, Force Concept Inventory designed to evaluate
conceptual understanding of Newton’s laws of motion by students completing
introductory college physics courses. The major hurdle to current attempts at
establishing a viable BSI stems from the relative paucity of credible data
illustrating the true level of student understandings of “…foundational concepts
in the biological sciences”. The authors mention some NOTABLE exceptions, such as
an instrument focused on natural selection (Anderson, et al., 2002), and one on
diffusion and osmosis (Odom and Barrow, 1995). The discussion focuses on the
procedures the researchers used to attempt to capture true and fundamental
misconceptions on the part of students concerning the impact of random processes
on biological systems. The first step was to have students answer in essay
format several open ended questions on a broad range of biological topics. The
essays were used to determine the ‘language’ that students use to attempt
explanations of complex phenomena. These essays were analyzed using the Ed’s
Tools Web software system (Klymkowshy and Garvin-Doxas, 2008) to identify
statistically significant patterns in phrases of students’ responses. The essays
were followed up by personal interviews with the students by a researcher that
presented them self as someone with very little biology background. This in an
attempt to make the students feel more comfortable in opening up, even to the
extent that they (the student) could feel like a relative “expert”. The
interviews were primarily designed to illicit patterns of deep seated
misunderstandings. These patterns were then used to design an instrument which
looks like a multiple choice “test” [sic], but one which uses commonly held
student misconceptions as distracters. Some of the article is devoted to
presenting actual essays written by students concerning their understanding of
random forces in both evolution and diffusion in an attempt to illustrate the
use of this technique in development of the BCI. There is small section on
‘Response to teaching’ which gives some results of the instrument and their
relationship to teaching style.
Reaction: This article is a very nice
presentation of what happens when you attempt to develop robust assessment tools
and in the process identify underlying patterns in the efficacy of approaches to
education. It is a fair introduction to the ideas (both historical and
philosophical) behind the development of the BCI, but it sometimes is confusing
to get just exactly what the authors were trying to impart. Is it the
methodology surrounding development of the instrument, or is it elucidating a
fundamental level of scientific naivety on the part of students participating in
the study? While I believe they do a good job in partitioning the information,
it may have been better as two separate reports. I really like the graphical
presentation of the results of some of the first round analyses, but am
disappointed in the relatively small amount of discussion in the ‘response to
teaching‘ section. I will definitely use this as a starting point to learn more
about the development, use and utility of the BCI.