Using framing as a lens to understand context effects on expert reasoning
National calls to transform undergraduate classrooms highlight the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). As biologists, we use principles from chemistry and physics to make sense of the natural world. One might assume that scientists, regardless of discipline, use similar principles, resources, and reasoning to explain crosscutting phenomena. However, the context of complex natural systems can profoundly impact the knowledge activated. In this study, we used the theoretical lens of framing to explore how experts from different disciplines reasoned about a crosscutting phenomenon. Using interviews conducted with faculty (n = 10) in biology, physics, and engineering, we used isomorphic tasks to explore the impact of item context features (i.e., blood or water) on how faculty framed and reasoned about fluid dynamics, a crosscutting concept. While faculty were internally consistent in their reasoning across prompts, biology experts framed fluid dynamics problems differently than experts in physics and engineering and, as a result, used different principles and resources to reach different conclusions. These results have several implications for undergraduate learners who encounter these cross-disciplinary topics in all of their STEM courses. If each curriculum expects students to develop different reasoning strategies, students may struggle to build a coherent, transferable understanding of crosscutting phenomena.
Physiology is hard: a replication study of students’ perceived learning difficulties
Human Anatomy and Physiology (HAP) has long been recognized as a difficult course. A 2007 study (Michael J. Adv Physiol Educ 31: 34–40, 2007) sought to better understand this difficulty by asking faculty for their perceptions of why students struggle to learn in HAP. Later research built on these findings by investigating why students find physiology difficult (Sturges D, Maurer T. Internet J Allied Health Sci Pract 11: 1–10, 2013). However, without replication, these claims are limited in their generalizability. There is a need in physiology education research to replicate studies like these across different institutions to support generalizations. We, therefore, replicated both of these studies by collecting survey responses from 466 students at 4 different institutions and 17 instructors at 15 different institutions. We found that students in our study identified similar factors as the students surveyed in the original study. Students most strongly agreed with items that attributed the difficulty of HAP to the nature of the discipline, as opposed to the way physiology is taught or the way students approach learning it. Faculty in our sample, like those in the original study by Michael, agreed most strongly with items that attributed physiology’s difficulty to discipline specific factors. Our data reinforce the results of Sturges and Maurer and Michael. We can more confidently claim that HAP students and faculty believe the difficulty in learning physiology is the result of inherent features of the discipline itself and not factors related to instruction or the students themselves.
Good problems within and across disciplines
This paper focuses on the question of what makes a good disciplinary or interdisciplinary problem. We
draw from literature across the STEM disciplines and two conference sessions to provide insight into what makes a good problem within a specific discipline and across the disciplines. We use various frameworks to analyze a variety of problems that were nominated as exemplars by STEM education research experts. Common features identified include real-world connections, reinforcement of conceptual understanding, a low floor and high ceiling, multiple solutions paths, and building dispositions of professionals in the discipline. While a good problem need not have all of these features, in general, good problems have more of these features. We also recognize that these problems are context-specific, as what may be considered a problem for one learner could be a trivial exercise for another. We discuss some of the challenges of designing good interdisciplinary problems and identify some features that can make a problem interdisciplinary, including use of cross-cutting concepts and drawing on the specific expertise of each discipline.
Drawing on student knowledge of neuroanatomy and physiology
Drawings are an underutilized assessment format in Human Anatomy and Physiology (HA&P), despite their potential to reveal student content understanding and alternative conceptions. This study used student-generated drawings to explore student knowledge in a HA&P course. The drawing tasks in this study focused on chemical synapses between neurons, an abstract concept in HA&P. Using two preinstruction drawing tasks, students were asked to depict synaptic transmission and summation. In response to the first drawing task, 20% of students (n = 352) created accurate representations of neuron anatomy. The remaining students created drawings suggesting an inaccurate or incomplete understanding of synaptic transmission. Of the 208 inaccurate student-generated drawings, 21% depicted the neurons as touching. When asked to illustrate summation, only 10 students (roughly 4%) were able to produce an accurate drawing. Overall, students were more successful at drawing anatomy (synapse) than physiology (summation) before formal instruction. The common errors observed in student-generated drawings indicate students do not enter the classroom as blank slates. The error of "touching" neurons in a chemical synapse suggests that students may be using intuitive or experiential knowledge when reasoning about physiological concepts. These results 1) support the utility of drawing tasks as a tool to reveal student content knowledge about neuroanatomy and neurophysiology; and 2) suggest students enter the classroom with better knowledge of anatomy than physiology. Collectively, the findings from this study inform both practitioners and researchers about the prevalence and nature of student difficulties in HA&P, while also demonstrating the utility of drawing in revealing student knowledge.