Grade level of principles of genetics by gardner

#Grade level of principles of genetics by gardner free#

To identify question topics, we began by reviewing literature that highlighted common misconceptions in genetics ( Venville and Treagust, 1998 Lewis et al., 2000a, b, c, d Marbach-Ad and Stavy, 2000 Wood-Robinson et al., 2000 Marbach-Ad, 2001 Tsui and Treagust, 2004 Chattopadhyay, 2005 Orcajo and Aznar, 2005). We used a multistep process to develop the GCA ( Table 1). A fourth assessment reported to be in development ( Garvin-Doxas et al., 2007) was not yet available for use. Furthermore, the statistical evaluation of the third instrument was largely limited to data collected before genetics instruction and was not used to measure learning gains. However, two of these were not validated by student interviews or input from multiple faculty members ( Zohar and Nemet, 2002 Sadler and Zeidler, 2005) and the third, although validated by experts and student focus groups, was designed primarily for testing of nonscience majors ( Bowling et al., 2008). When we began, at least four other assessments designed to measure genetics knowledge were available or under development.

We then created an assessment consisting of questions that address these learning goals using student-provided distracters, validated these questions through student interviews and expert reviews, and further refined the assessment based on pilot study results. Following several examples of assessment development ( Hestenes, 1992 Anderson et al., 2002 Hufnagel, 2002 Ding et al., 2006 Bowling et al., 2008), we established a set of learning goals for undergraduate genetics courses by interviewing course instructors and other genetics experts. We developed the GCA to have a validated, reliable, multiple-choice assessment instrument for evaluating how these changes would affect student learning and conceptual understanding in genetics. The SEI is a 5-yr project designed to вЂњtransformвЂќ the core majors courses in five science departments by introducing proven teaching practices such as formulation of specific learning goals, increased use of class time for interactive and group learning activities, increased use of formative assessments including вЂњclickerвЂќ questions, and pre/post assessment to measure learning gains.

We are in the process of restructuring our majors and nonmajors genetics courses as part of the Science Education Initiative (SEI at University of Colorado, Boulder (CU). We also describe how the GCA can be used to evaluate which concepts students have learned well and which still cause them persistent difficulties after taking a genetics course. Statistical analysis of test answers from >600 students at three institutions demonstrates that the GCA has an acceptable range of question difficulty and shows high reliability when taken by two similar populations of students in subsequent semesters. In this article, we describe our validation of the GCA through student interviews, pilot testing, and expert review. The GCA is designed to be administered at the start of a course as a pretest and at the end of the course as a posttest, to measure student learning gains ( Hake, 1998). The questions assess understanding of a set of basic genetics concepts likely to be taught in courses for both majors and nonmajors.

#Grade level of principles of genetics by gardner free#

The GCA consists of 25 multiple-choice questions, designed to be clear, concise, and as free of jargon as possible. Although some assessment tools are available that could be suitable for widespread comparison of different instructional approaches in biology ( Anderson et al., 2002 Klymkowsky et al., 2003 Garvin-Doxas et al., 2007 Bowling et al., 2008), more are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching reforms in different subdisciplines of the life sciences, including genetics.ДЇor this purpose, we developed and validated the Genetics Concept Assessment (GCA). Limited evidence suggests that, as in physics, replacement of traditional lectures with more interactive approaches can result in higher student learning gains (e.g., Udovic et al., 2002 Knight and Wood, 2005 Freeman et al., 2007). Biology educators also have begun to compare the effectiveness of different instructional approaches in their courses. Data collected using these assessments in a variety of physics courses clearly indicate that student learning of these concepts is greater in interactive courses than in traditional courses ( Hake, 1998 Crouch and Mazur, 2001 Hake, 2002).

Physics instruction has been improved by the use of carefully developed multiple-choice tests (concept inventories) that examine student conceptual understanding on a narrow set of topics ( Hestenes, 1992 Chabay and Sherwood, 1997 Thornton and Sokoloff, 1998 Ding et al., 2006).