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Improving Academic Performance, Belonging, and Retention through Increasing Structure of an Introductory Biology Course.

ABSTRACT: Integration of active-learning approaches into increased-structure postsecondary classrooms significantly improves student academic outcomes. We describe here two parallel sections of Introductory Biology that shared learning objectives and content but varied in course structure. The large-enrollment traditional course consisted of four 50-minute lectures coupled with minimal active-learning techniques, while an increased-structure intervention course integrated multiple active-learning approaches, had limited enrollment, and comprised three 50-minute lectures combined with a fourth peer-led team-learning discussion section. Additionally, the intervention course employed weekly review quizzes and multiple in-class formative assessments. The academic impact of these two course formats was evaluated by use of common exam questions, final grade, and student retention. We showed that academic achievement and retention of participants enrolled in the intervention course was significantly improved when compared with the traditional section. Further, we explored whether promoting in-class student-student/student-instructor interactions and peer-led discussion sections fostered a greater sense of belonging. At the end of the course, participants in the intervention course reported greater perceptions of classroom belonging. Therefore, this study begins to characterize the importance of combining pedagogical methods that promote both academic success and belonging to effectively improve retention in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors.

SUBMITTER: Wilton M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6818464 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Improving Academic Performance and Retention of First-Year Biology Students through a Scalable Peer Mentorship Program.

Project description:We examine the impact of Biology Mentoring and Engagement (BIOME) near-peer mentorship on 437 first-year undergraduate students over three cohort years. The BIOME course consists of ten, 50-minute meetings where groups of six first-year mentees meet with an upper-division student mentor to discuss topics including metacognition, growth mindset, and effective study strategies. We employed a mixed-methods approach to evaluate the impact of BIOME on mentee academic outcomes. Initial ethnographic analysis revealed that BIOME influenced student study methods, approaches to academic challenges, and use of campus learning communities. We then constructed a novel, program-specific instrument to measure the implementation of these habits, a construct we named "academic habit complexity." Regression analysis supported the hypothesis that enrollment in BIOME leads to students using more diverse approaches than their peers. Enrollment in BIOME, and the associated development of academic habit complexity, is related to higher course grades in General Chemistry, a biology major prerequisite. Finally, students participating in BIOME demonstrated improved short-term student retention as measured by increased enrollment in the subsequent prerequisite General Chemistry course. These results suggest that course-based near-peer mentorship may be an effective and scalable approach that can promote student academic success.

| S-EPMC8715785 | biostudies-literature

Exploring Biology: A Vision and Change Disciplinary First-Year Seminar Improves Academic Performance in Introductory Biology.

Project description:The transition to college is challenging for most students, especially those who aspire to major in the science, technology, engineering, or mathematics disciplines, in which introductory courses can be large and instruction less than optimal. This paper describes a novel, disciplinary first-year seminar (FYS) course, Exploring Biology, designed to address many of the challenges facing aspiring biology students beginning their academic careers at a large public research university. The course addresses typical FYS goals, such as community building, introduction to resources, and academic skill development, and introduces students to the core concepts of biology defined in the 2011 Vision and Change report. Relative to a matched comparison group of students, Exploring Biology alumni were retained at higher rates and had higher levels of academic performance in a subsequent introductory biology course, suggesting Exploring Biology has a positive impact on future academic performance in the discipline. Results from course evaluations and an alumni survey show that, overall, students valued both the FYS components and biology components of the course. These results provide evidence that the Exploring Biology disciplinary FYS model is an intervention that may increase academic success and retention in biology.

| S-EPMC5998329 | biostudies-literature

A Cocurricular Program That Encourages Specific Study Skills and Habits Improves Academic Performance and Retention of First-Year Undergraduates in Introductory Biology.

Project description:Students must master content for success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), but "how to" is rarely taught in college. Faculty are reluctant to sacrifice class time, believe such instruction is remedial, or assume students possess or will attain these skills independently. To determine whether explicit instruction would improve skills and performance by first-year undergraduates likely to major in STEM, we invited all students in an introductory biology course to participate in an 8-week Co-Curricular (CoC) program. Students who participated improved time management, used more methods to plan and organize their study, and used a variety of active-learning strategies. A validated model was used to predict students' probability of achieving a "C+" or better in the course. The model, based on 5 years of data, used students' demographic characteristics and previous academic performance to provide a measure of their preparedness. Students with low and medium preparedness who participated in CoC performed better than those who did not participate. All students who participated were retained in the course compared with 88.7% of students who did not participate. Specific behavioral changes at the start of STEM gateway courses can dramatically improve student metacognition, retention, and academic performance, particularly for students underrepresented in the discipline.

| S-EPMC8108492 | biostudies-literature

Improving Exam Performance in Introductory Biology through the Use of Preclass Reading Guides.

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| S-EPMC5589426 | biostudies-literature

Helping struggling students in introductory biology: a peer-tutoring approach that improves performance, perception, and retention.

Project description:The high attrition rate among science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors has long been an area of concern for institutions and educational researchers. The transition from introductory to advanced courses has been identified as a particularly "leaky" point along the STEM pipeline, and students who struggle early in an introductory STEM course are predominantly at risk. Peer-tutoring programs offered to all students in a course have been widely found to help STEM students during this critical transition, but hiring a sufficient number of tutors may not be an option for some institutions. As an alternative, this study examines the viability of an optional peer-tutoring program offered to students who are struggling in a large-enrollment, introductory biology course. Struggling students who regularly attended peer tutoring increased exam performance, expert-like perceptions of biology, and course persistence relative to their struggling peers who were not attending the peer-tutoring sessions. The results of this study provide information to instructors who want to design targeted academic assistance for students who are struggling in introductory courses.

| S-EPMC4477732 | biostudies-literature

Exploring metagenomics in the laboratory of an introductory biology course.

Project description:Four laboratory modules were designed for introductory biology students to explore the field of metagenomics. Students collected microbes from environmental samples, extracted the DNA, and amplified 16S rRNA gene sequences using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Students designed functional metagenomics screens to determine and compare antibiotic resistance profiles among the samples. Bioinformatics tools were used to generate and interpret phylogenetic trees and identify homologous genes. A pretest and posttest were used to assess learning gains, and the results indicated that these modules increased student performance by an average of 22%. Here we describe ways to engage students in metagenomics-related research and provide readers with ideas for how they can start developing metagenomics exercises for their own classrooms.

| S-EPMC4416502 | biostudies-literature

Student interpretations of phylogenetic trees in an introductory biology course.

Project description:Phylogenetic trees are widely used visual representations in the biological sciences and the most important visual representations in evolutionary biology. Therefore, phylogenetic trees have also become an important component of biology education. We sought to characterize reasoning used by introductory biology students in interpreting taxa relatedness on phylogenetic trees, to measure the prevalence of correct taxa-relatedness interpretations, and to determine how student reasoning and correctness change in response to instruction and over time. Counting synapomorphies and nodes between taxa were the most common forms of incorrect reasoning, which presents a pedagogical dilemma concerning labeled synapomorphies on phylogenetic trees. Students also independently generated an alternative form of correct reasoning using monophyletic groups, the use of which decreased in popularity over time. Approximately half of all students were able to correctly interpret taxa relatedness on phylogenetic trees, and many memorized correct reasoning without understanding its application. Broad initial instruction that allowed students to generate inferences on their own contributed very little to phylogenetic tree understanding, while targeted instruction on evolutionary relationships improved understanding to some extent. Phylogenetic trees, which can directly affect student understanding of evolution, appear to offer introductory biology instructors a formidable pedagogical challenge.

| S-EPMC4255353 | biostudies-literature

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Project description:In introductory laboratory courses, many universities are turning from traditional laboratories with predictable outcomes to inquiry-inspired, project-based laboratory curricula. In these labs, students are allowed to design at least some portion of their own experiment and interpret new, undiscovered data. We have redesigned the introductory biology laboratory course at Brandeis University into a semester-long project-based laboratory that emphasizes concepts and contains an element of scientific inquiry. In this laboratory, students perform a site-directed mutagenesis experiment on the gene encoding human γD crystallin, a human eye lens protein implicated in cataracts, and assess the stability of their newly created protein with respect to wild-type crystallin. This laboratory utilizes basic techniques in molecular biology to emphasize the importance of connections between DNA and protein. This project lab has helped engage students in their own learning, has improved students' skills in critical thinking and analysis, and has promoted interest in basic research in biology.

| S-EPMC3046884 | biostudies-literature

Nationally endorsed learning objectives to improve course design in introductory biology.

Project description:Introductory biology for majors is one of the most consequential courses in STEM, with annual enrollments of several hundred thousand students in the United States alone. To support increased student success and meet current and projected needs for qualified STEM professionals, it will be crucial to redesign majors biology by using explicit learning objectives (LOs) that can be aligned with assessments and active learning exercises. When a course is designed in this way, students have opportunities for the practice and support they need to learn, and instructors can collect the evidence they need to evaluate whether students have mastered key concepts and skills. Following an iterative process of review, revision, and evaluation, which included input from over 800 biology instructors around the country, we produced a nationally endorsed set of lesson-level LOs for a year-long introductory biology for major's course. These LOs are granular enough to support individual class sessions and provide instructors with a framework for course design that is directly connected to the broad themes in Vision and Change and the general statements in the BioCore and BioSkills Guides. Instructors can implement backward course design by aligning these community endorsed LOs with daily and weekly learning activities and with formative and summative assessments.

| S-EPMC11326583 | biostudies-literature

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Project description:Accurate self-evaluation is critical for learning. Calibration describes the relationship between learners' perception of their performance and their actual performance on a task. Here, we describe two studies aimed at assessing and improving student calibration in a first-semester introductory biology course at a 4-year public institution. Study 1 investigated students' (n = 310) calibration (the difference between estimated and actual exam performance) across one semester. Students were significantly miscalibrated for the first exam: their predicted scores were, on average, significantly higher than their actual scores. The lowest-performing students had the most inaccurate estimates. Calibration improved with each exam. By the final exam, students underestimated their scores. We initiated a second study in the following semester to examine whether explicitly teaching students about self-evaluation strategies would improve their calibration and performance. Instruction in the experimental section (n = 290) focused on students' tendency to overestimate their abilities and provided retrieval-practice opportunities. Students in the experimental section showed better calibration and performance on the first exam compared with students in a control section taught by a different instructor during the same semester (n = 251). These findings suggest that simple instructional strategies can increase students' metacognitive awareness and improve their performance.

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