Today's Seminar: Do undergraduate science exams test science practices?

Scientific practices are the skills used to develop scientific knowledge and are essential across careers in STEM, but do undergraduate science exams test these skills? Join us this afternoon as Crystal Uminski shares her research into this topic.

Title:
Do undergraduate science exams test science practices?

Abstract:
Scientific practices are the skills used to develop scientific knowledge and are essential across careers in science disciplines. Despite calls from education and government agencies to cultivate scientific practices, there remains little evidence of how often students are asked to apply them in undergraduate courses. We analyzed exams from 111 lower-division biology courses at 100 institutions across the United States and found that only 7% of exam questions addressed a scientific practice. Exams that incorporated scientific practices tended to have a higher average Bloom’s Taxonomy level, indicating that scientific practices elicit higher-order cognitive skills. The low occurrence of scientific practices on exams signals that undergraduate courses may not be integrating foundational scientific skills throughout their curriculum in the manner envisioned by recent national frameworks. However, the close association with higher-order cognitive skills suggests that scientific practices represent a primary means to help students develop critical thinking skills.

Date: Thursday, 2/2/2023, from 2-3 pm CT
Place: 109 Bessey Hall or via Zoom at
https://unl.zoom.us/j/212107342