ArticleCBE life sciences education2024
Undergraduate Biology Lecture Courses Predominantly Test Facts about Science Rather than Scientific Practices.
Article in CBE life sciences education, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
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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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Bad AI-generated images can be good for teaching visual literacy in biology.Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2026Article
- Not simply "active": identifying types of active-learning tasks in introductory biology.Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2026Article
- Examining Science Practices in an Introductory Biology Laboratory Curriculum.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Article
- The state of introductory biology following 16 years of pedagogical reform sinceJournal of microbiology & biology education · 2025Article
- A Scoping Review of Published Lesson Plans Showcases Two Decades of Change in Undergraduate Life Science Education Resources.CBE life sciences education · 2025Article
- Sketchy understandings: drawings reveal where students may need additional support to understand scale and abstraction in common representations of DNA.Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2025Article
- What Happens When Undergraduate Biology Students Meet with Professional Scientists to Discuss Research? An Exploratory Investigation into Scientific Discourse, Motivation, and Sense of Belonging.CBE life sciences education · 2025Article
- Probing Visual Literacy Skills Reveals Unexpected Student Conceptions of Chromosomes.CBE life sciences education · 2025Article
- Article
- Exam reform: an opportunity for the redistribution of academic power.Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2024Article
- Probing visual literacy skills reveals unexpected student conceptions of chromosomes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Identifying factors associated with instructor implementation of three-dimensional assessment in undergraduate biology courses.PloS one · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Scientific practices are the skills used to develop scientific knowledge and are essential for careers in science. Despite calls from education and government agencies to cultivate scientific practices, there remains little evidence of how often students are asked to apply them in undergraduate courses. We analyzed exams from biology courses at 100 institutions across the United States and found that only 7% of exam questions addressed a scientific practice and that 32% of biology exams did not test any scientific practices. The low occurrence of scientific practices on exams signals that undergraduate courses may not be integrating foundational scientific skills throughout their curriculum in the manner envisioned by recent national frameworks. Although there were few scientific practices overall, their close association with higher-order cognitive skills suggests that scientific practices represent a primary means to help students develop critical thinking skills and highlights the importance of incorporating a greater degree of scientific practices into undergraduate lecture courses and exams.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.