Biology subjects

Wright, L. K.

Publications and source records attributed to Wright, L. K..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Sketchy understandings: Drawings reveal where students may need additional support to understand scale and abstraction in common representations of DNA

Visual representations in molecular biology tend to follow a set of shared conventions for using certain shapes and symbols to convey information about the size and structure of nucleotides, genes, and chromosomes. Understanding how and why biologists use these conventions to represent DNA is a key part of visual literacy in molecular biology. Visual literacy, which is the ability to read and interpret visual representations, encompasses a set of skills that are necessary for biologists to effectively use models to communicate about molecular structures that cannot be directly observed. To gauge students visual literacy skills, we conducted semi-structured interviews with undergraduate students who had completed at least a year of biology courses. We asked students to draw and interpret figures of nucleotides, genes, and chromosomes, and we analyzed their drawings for adherence to conventions for representing scale and abstraction. We found that 77% of students made errors in representing scale and 86% of students made errors in representing abstraction. We also observed about half of the students in our sample using the conventional shapes and symbols to represent DNA in unconventional ways. These unconventional sketches may signal an incomplete understanding of the structure and function of DNA. Our findings indicate that students may need additional instructional support to interpret the conventions in common representations of DNA. We highlight opportunities for instructors to scaffold visual literacy skills into their teaching to help students better understand visual conventions for representing scale and abstraction in molecular biology.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2024

Biology exams rarely use visual models to engage higher-order cognitive skills

Visual models are a necessary part of molecular biology education because submicroscopic compounds and processes cannot be directly observed. Accurately interpreting the biological information conveyed by the shapes and symbols in these visual models requires engaging visual literacy skills. For students to develop expertise in molecular biology visual literacy, they need to have structured experiences using and creating visual models, but there is little evidence to gauge how often undergraduate biology students are provided such opportunities. To investigate students visual literacy experiences, we surveyed 66 instructors who taught lower division undergraduate biology courses with a focus on molecular biology concepts. We collected self-reported data about the frequency with which the instructors teach with visual models and we analyzed course exams to determine how instructors incorporated visual models into their assessments. We found that most instructors reported teaching with models in their courses, yet only 16% of exam items in the sample contained a visual model. There was not a statistically significant relationship between instructors self-reported frequency of teaching with models and extent to which their exams contained models, signaling a potential mismatch between teaching and assessment practices. Although exam items containing models have the potential to elicit higher-order cognitive skills through model-based reasoning, we found that when instructors included visual models in their exams the majority of the items only targeted the lower-order cognitive skills of Blooms Taxonomy. Together, our findings highlight that despite the importance of visual models in molecular biology, students may not often have opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of these models on assessments.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2024

Probing visual literacy skills reveals student conceptions of scale and abstraction with respect to chromosomes

Molecular biology can be difficult for undergraduate students because course content is often taught using highly-abstract visual representations. Genetic concepts can be depicted with lines, letters, shapes, and symbols, and students need to engage their visual literacy skills to appropriately decipher these abstract representations. We previously found that undergraduate course materials almost always represent chromosomes in abstract forms, such as "X" shapes or straight lines with a dot for the centromere. We hypothesized that students struggle to apply their visual literacy skills to accurately interpret these abstract representations of chromosomes, which may be related to the frequently-documented incomplete or incorrect ideas students have about chromosome structure and function. To explore students visual literacy related to representations of chromosomes, we conducted 35 semi-structured interviews with students who had taken at least a year of biology courses. We asked them to sketch chromosomes, interpret an abstract representation of chromosomes, and use the abstract representation to answer a question about meiosis. We found that 97% of participants (34 of 35) held conceptual errors related to chromosome structure and function. These conceptual errors were often not evident in participants verbal definitions of chromosomes and were only revealed in their sketches or explanations of their sketches. We found that participants frequently misinterpreted X-shaped representations of chromosomes, mistook unreplicated homologous chromosomes as separated sister chromatids, and held misconceptions related to the structure and function of centromeres. These findings have implications for how chromosomes are taught in biology courses. We recommend that instructors explicitly discuss the conventions and norms of representing chromosomes as a pathway for increasing students visual literacy in molecular biology.

scientific communication and education↗