Efforts to reform college-level introductory biology are gaining momentum nationally. Demand is high for professional development venues that train faculty to adopt learner-centered instructional strategies that better reflect science practice. Despite our unified enthusiasm for improving biology teaching, a recent report by Momsen, et al. (in review) suggests that overwhelmingly, students in introductory biology are being assessed primarily for their ability to recall factual information. This finding is inconsistent with the goals of the reform movement that place a premium on engaging students in cognitive processes that reflect disciplinary epistemology.
We applied principles of Backward Design to guide and inform the redesign of introductory biology (BioSci) at MSU. Unlike conventional approaches that use content to guide course development, Backward Design foregrounds the roles of learning objectives and acceptable evidence over subject matter and instructional method. In this reform model, instructional decisions are driven by and responsive to data about student learning. We compared assessments from the BioSci course pre- and post-reform to test the assumption that instructors would assess students at higher cognitive levels in the context of a reform model that situates assessment as a core organizing principle.
Results/Conclusions
Five high-stakes assessments (i.e., exams and quizzes) were randomly selected from sections of the BioSci course before and after reform. Items were rated for level of cognitive complexity by two trained raters (ICC=0.77) using Bloom's Taxonomy for Educational Objectives. Pre-reform assessment items ranged from Bloom level 1-3 (knowledge, comprehension, application) and achieved a mean rating of 1.34 (± 0.031) with the median at 1. Bloom ratings for assessments from the reformed course were, on average, significantly higher (2.78 ± 0.141; Mann-Whitney U Test in R, p<0.001) and spanned the full range of Bloom's levels 1-6 with the median at 2.5. Among the pre-reform assessments, only 1% of items targeted the cognitive processes of application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation (Bloom levels 3-6). This value increased to 48% for post-reform assessments.
Our results support the hypothesis that a backward-designed, assessment-driven reform model will motivate faculty to incorporate assessment strategies that are broader in their scope and that engage science process skills (e.g., application and analysis) that facilitate students' learning of biology. Assessments that target factual recall fail to produce convincing evidence that efforts to reform undergraduate biology are worthy of our time, attention, and resources.