ArticleCBE life sciences education2022
Understanding Homeostatic Regulation: The Role of Relationships and Conditions in Feedback Loop Reasoning.
Article in CBE life sciences education, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Metabolic Supercharging: Active Learning Strategies for Increasing Student Engagement With Metabolism.Biochemistry and molecular biology education : a bimonthly publication of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular BiologyPooled it
- Neural Mechanisms of Social Homeostasis: Dynamic Range Plasticity.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Review
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2 authors.
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Abstract
Understanding homeostasis is a goal of biology education curricula, as homeostasis is a core feature of living systems. Identifying and understanding the underlying molecular feedback mechanisms appear to be challenging for students. Understanding the properties and mechanisms of such complex homeostatic systems requires feedback loop reasoning, which is a part of systems thinking. Novices seem to struggle to 1) consider more than one initiating condition in cause-effect relationships and 2) track cause and effect across a sequence of processes. In this cross-sectional study, we analyzed how these factors impede feedback loop reasoning. High school and undergraduate students analyzed the organizational, behavioral, and modeling-related features of a homeostatic system (blood calcium regulation). Using multidimensional item response theory, we were able to confirm the three-dimensional structure of the theoretical systems-thinking model and to identify the factors causing item difficulty. As hypothesized, indirect relationships and derived inverse conditions are challenging factors for participants in the context of homeostasis across dimensions. Hence, we recommend paying special attention to these factors when teaching homeostasis as part of systems thinking. We assume that allowing students to reason from different initiating conditions in a learning setting may improve their systems-thinking skills.
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