The situational interest of undergraduate students in zoophysiology

Effect of different teaching/learning approaches using virtual patients on student's situational interest and cognitive load: a comparative study

BACKGROUND

Virtual Patients (VPs) have been receiving considerable attention in medical education as an authentic learning and teaching approach. The study aimed to evaluate the effect of using different approaches of conduction of virtual patients (VPs) on students' cognitive load and situational interest.

METHODS

The study is an experimental study. Two different cohorts have participated during the academic year 2019/2020 and 2020/2021. The first cohort (Group 1) was exposed to a lecture followed by an independent VPs session, and the second cohort (Group 2) was exposed to a collaborative VPs session. The situational interest and Cognitive load were compared between the two groups. All sessions are about one topic related to maxillofacial trauma.

RESULTS

Findings showed that there was no significant difference between the median score of the situational interest at repeated time points during the Collaborative VPs (Group 2). However, in group 1, there was a significant difference between the median score of situational interest at repeated time points during independent VPs where the lowest score was found to be at the end of the session. Also, results showed that the collaborative VPs (Group 2) showed a high median score of situational interest than both lecture and independent VPs (Group 1). Furthermore, the study showed that there is no significant difference in the intrinsic cognitive load among the three sessions. However, the extraneous cognitive load was low in collaborative VPs (Group 2) than in both lecture and independent VPs sessions (Group 1).

CONCLUSION

The use of VPs in a collaborative interactive learning activity is more effective than its use as an independent learning activity in enhancing students' situational interest and reducing cognitive load. However, giving independent VPs after the lecture with the same topic is considered a limitation of the study as this can affect the situational interest of the students by filling their gab of knowledge.

An Empirical Study of Situational Teaching: Agricultural Location in High School Geography

In China’s most recent round of curriculum reform, the “one situation to the end” (OSTE) situational teaching method has been successfully introduced in geography classes to improve students’ ability to solve problems in real-life situations. Taking an agricultural location course as an example, this study analyzes the implementation of situational teaching and discusses the effect of the OSTE method on the topic of sustainable development in the teaching of geography. Using a quasi-experimental design and by distributing a questionnaire to teachers in a Chinese high school, the following findings were obtained: (1) almost all teachers use some form of situational teaching, and the OSTE method has been widely used; (2) OSTE contributes to students’ awareness of sustainable and circular development, but it is not associated with an improvement in geographical skills; and (3) students are mostly interested in the promotion of higher-order thinking, a positive emotional experience, active learning, and the acquisition of systematic knowledge instead of fragmented knowledge. In short, OSTE is an efficient teaching method for geography classes, especially given how it fosters students’ sustainable development ideas. We suggest enriching the understanding of OSTE through teaching-training, jointly developed situations using students’ existing experiences, and well-designed question chains with more opportunities for interaction.

Teaching laboratory for large cohorts of undergraduates: Private and social information in fish

A challenge in the Bachelor's studies in Biology is to strike a balance between reducing the teaching of practical scientific experiments to what is feasible in a short time, and teaching "real" science in undergraduate laboratories for high numbers of participants. We describe a laboratory in behavioral biology, with the primary focus on the student learning. However, also the underlying scientific question and the results of the experiment, namely the behavior of the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) in a trade-off situation during foraging, is without a doubt timely and sufficient for scientific studies on this subject, and this through the experiments conducted and data collected by the students. The students rated this laboratory well and learned at the end that social information is certainly important, but that self-learning can be more important, and this not only in small fish, but also for the students themselves.

Repairing the Leaky Pipeline: A Motivationally Supportive Intervention to Enhance Persistence in Undergraduate Science Pathways

The current study reports on the efficacy of a multi-faceted motivationally designed undergraduate enrichment summer program for supporting science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) persistence. Structural equation modeling was used to compare summer program participants (n = 186), who participated in the program between their first and second years in college, to a propensity score matched comparison sample (n = 401). Participation in the summer program positively predicted science motivation (self-efficacy, task value), assessed eight months after the end of the program (second year in college). The summer enrichment program was also beneficial for science persistence variables, as evidenced by significant direct and indirect effects of the program on science course completion during students' third year of college and students' intentions to pursue a science research career assessed during the third year of college. In general, the program was equally beneficial for all participants, but ancillary analyses indicated added benefits with respect to task value for students with relatively lower prior science achievement during the first year of college and with respect to subsequent science course taking for males. Implications for developing effective interventions to reduce the flow of individuals out of STEM fields and for translating motivational theory into practice are discussed.

Students' motivation toward laboratory work in physiology teaching

The laboratory has been given a central role in physiology education, and teachers report that it is motivating for students to undertake experimental work on live animals or measuring physiological responses on the students themselves. Since motivation is a critical variable for academic learning and achievement, then we must concern ourselves with questions that examine how students engage in laboratory work and persist at such activities. The purpose of the present study was to investigate how laboratory work influences student motivation in physiology. We administered the Lab Motivation Scale to assess our students' levels of interest, willingness to engage (effort), and confidence in understanding (self-efficacy). We also asked students about the role of laboratory work for their own learning and their experience in the physiology laboratory. Our results documented high levels of interest, effort, and self-efficacy among the students. Correlation analyses were performed on the three motivation scales and exam results, yet a significant correlation was only found between self-efficacy in laboratory work and academic performance at the final exam. However, almost all students reported that laboratory work was very important for learning difficult concepts and physiological processes (e.g., action potential), as the hands-on experiences gave a more concrete idea of the learning content and made the content easier to remember. These results have implications for classroom practice as biology students find laboratory exercises highly motivating, despite their different personal interests and subject preferences. This highlights the importance of not replacing laboratory work by other nonpractical approaches, for example, video demonstrations or computer simulations.

Spiders in motion: demonstrating adaptation, structure-function relationships, and trade-offs in invertebrates

Evolutionary history and structural considerations constrain all aspects of animal physiology. Constraints on invertebrate locomotion are especially straightforward for students to observe and understand. In this exercise, students use spiders to investigate the concepts of adaptation, structure-function relationships, and trade-offs. Students measure burst and endurance performance in several taxonomic families of spiders whose ecological niches have led to different locomotory adaptations. Based on observations of spiders in their natural habitat and prior background information, students make predictions about spider performance. Students then construct their own knowledge by performing a hands-on, inquiry-based scientific experiment where the results are not necessarily known. Depending on the specific families chosen, students can observe that web-dwelling spiders have more difficulty navigating complex terrestrial terrain than ground-dwelling spiders and that there is a trade-off between burst performance and endurance performance in spiders. Our inexpensive runway design allows for countless variations on this basic experiment; for example, we have successfully used runways to show students how the performance of heterothermic ectotherms varies with temperature. High levels of intra- and interindividual variation in performance underscore the importance of using multiple trials and statistical tests. Finally, this laboratory activity can be completely student driven or standardized, depending on the instructor's preference.

Antecedents and consequences of situational interest

BACKGROUND

There is a growing body of research on situational interest (SI). Yet, we still know relatively little about how SI is supported in the classroom and the academic benefits of SI.

AIM

The current study investigated (1) contextual antecedents of SI; (2) potential benefits of SI for academic outcomes; and (3) SI as a mediator of classroom practices to academic outcomes.

SAMPLE

Participants were 126 male and female adolescents (mean age = 14.6 years) who took part in a science course during a 3-week residential summer programme for talented adolescents.

METHOD

Participants completed self-report measures prior to the start of the summer programme and at the end of the programme. Summer programme instructors completed ratings of students' engagement during the programme.

RESULT

Multiple regression analyses were conducted to investigate the three study aims. After controlling for initial individual interest, perceived choice, instructor approachability, and course connections to real life were statistically significant predictors of SI during the summer programme, with varying associations observed based on the form of SI (triggered, maintained-feeling, and maintained-value). SI was positively related to individual interest and perceived competence in science at the end of the programme as well as teacher-rated engagement; SI also mediated the associations of classroom practices with these outcomes.

CONCLUSION

Results suggest that classroom practices shape SI. In turn, SI supports motivation and engagement. Moreover, differentiated antecedents and outcomes of the three sub-components of SI were identified, highlighting the utility of this three-component approach for studying SI.

Not only students can express alcohol dehydrogenase: goldfish can too!

This article describes a novel approach to study the metabolic regulation of the respiratory system in vertebrates that suits physiology lessons for undergraduate students. It consists of an experimental demonstration of the goldfish's (Carassius auratus) adaptations to anoxia. The goldfish is one of the few vertebrates showing strong enzymatic plasticity for the expression of alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), which allows it to survive long periods of severe anoxia. Therefore, we propose two simple laboratory exercises in which students are first asked to characterize the distribution of ADH isozymes in the goldfish by performing cellulose acetate electrophoresis. The second part of this laboratory lesson is the determination of liver glycogen. To further student comprehension, an interspecies comparative component is integrated, in which the same subjects are studied in an anoxia-sensitive species, the brook charr (Salvelinus fontinalis). ADH in goldfish is restricted to skeletal muscles, where it catalyzes alcoholic fermentation, permitting ethanol excretion through the gills and therefore preventing lactate acidosis caused by sustained glycolysis during anoxia. Electrophoresis also reveals the occurrence of a liver isozyme in the brook charr, which ADH catalyzes in the opposite pathway, allowing the usual ethanol degradation. As for the liver glycogen assay, it shows largely superior content in the goldfish liver compared with the brook charr, providing goldfish with a sustained energy supply during anoxia. The results of this laboratory exercise clearly demonstrate several physiological strategies developed by goldfish to cope with such a crucial environmental challenge as oxygen depletion.