Should students change their answers on multiple choice questions?

Multiple choice exams are ubiquitous, but advice on test-taking strategies varies and is not always well informed by research. This study evaluated the question of whether students benefit or are harmed when they change their initial answers on multiple choice questions in the context of physiology and biology courses. Previously marked examinations were reviewed for eraser marks that indicated answer changes, and the impact of these changes on exam grades was tabulated. In addition, faculty and students were surveyed for their opinions about changing answers. A plurality of faculty (36%) reported a belief that answer changes usually harm student grades, whereas a slim majority of students (51%) believed that answer changing helped their scores (χ² = 60.52, P < 0.0001). Empirically, across two exams, students changed their answer from an incorrect answer to a correct one 2.8 times (SD 2.2) compared with 1.0 time (SD 1.4) changing in the negative direction. Therefore, on average, students benefited (V = 123.5, P < 0.0001) from answer changing. Furthermore, comparing across two exams in the same course, some students were consistently more likely to change their answers than others (adjusted R² = 0.23, P < 0.0001), but the impact of changing answers on the first exam provided no prediction of how much a student would benefit from answer changing on the second exam (adjusted R² = -0.004, P = 0.42). These data support the argument that students should be advised to review and revise responses to exam questions before submitting them.

Physiology education in North American dental schools: the basic science survey series

As part of the Basic Science Survey Series for Dentistry, members of the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) Physiology, Pharmacology, and Therapeutics Section surveyed directors of physiology courses in North American dental schools. The survey was designed to assess, among other things, faculty affiliation and experience of course directors, teaching methods, general course content and emphasis, extent of interdisciplinary (shared) instruction, and impact of recent curricular changes. Responses were received from forty-four of sixty-seven (65.7 percent) U.S. and Canadian dental schools. The findings suggest the following: substantial variation exists in instructional hours, faculty affiliation, class size, and interdisciplinary nature of physiology courses; physiology course content emphasis is similar between schools; student contact hours in physiology, which have remained relatively stable in the past fifteen years, are starting to be reduced; recent curricular changes have often been directed towards enhancing the integrative and clinically relevant aspects of physiology instruction; and a trend toward innovative content delivery, such as use of computer-assisted instruction, is evident. Data from this study may be useful to physiology course directors, curriculum committees, and other dental educators with an interest in integrative and interprofessional education.

Development of concept-based physiology lessons for biomedical engineering undergraduate students

Physiology is a core requirement in the undergraduate biomedical engineering curriculum. In one or two introductory physiology courses, engineering students must learn physiology sufficiently to support learning in their subsequent engineering courses and careers. As preparation for future learning, physiology instruction centered on concepts may help engineering students to further develop their physiology and biomedical engineering knowledge. Following the Backward Design instructional model, a series of seven concept-based lessons was developed for undergraduate engineering students. These online lessons were created as prerequisite physiology training to prepare students to engage in a collaborative engineering challenge activity. This work is presented as an example of how to convert standard, organ system-based physiology content into concept-based content lessons.