Increasing the science literacy of undergraduate students in STEM: Merging the crosscutting concept of scale with introductory science course content

科学教育研究表明，学生努力学习科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)课程中的材料，通常会发现很难理解他们无法直接观察到的过程。当学生遇到涉及大小、距离和非常小或非常大的时间范围的概念时，这些挑战尤其明显。这个项目将进行研究和开发创新的教学策略和学习评估，以应对规模识字方面的挑战，规模识字是衡量个人掌握概念和协调涉及大小、距离和时间框架大小不同的现象的能力的指标，是一个人整体科学素养的重要组成部分。尽管该项目将重点放在化学和生物入门课程上，但从研究中获得的见解将广泛适用于所有学科的STEM教育。这项工作将由威斯康星大学密尔沃基分校(UWM)这个项目的研究人员进行的初步研究提供信息，该研究成功地证明，通过将量表作为主题融入教学，学生在普通化学I中取得了学习成果。此外，先前的工作导致开发了两种评估工具，即比额表概念清单(SCI)和比额表识字技能测试(SLST)，将在本项目中使用。通过这一项目，威斯康星大学以规模为主题的教学将扩展到普通化学II和生物学入门(解剖学和生理学I)，并将有助于加深对STEM课程中规模素养与学生成功之间关系的理解。为了促进除化学或生物以外的STEM学科的教育工作者采用通过该项目制定的有效教学策略，对量表素养的评估将区分领域通用的量表概念和特定领域的量表概念。除了SCI和SLST，将被用来衡量项目结果的具体工具和数据来源包括美国化学学会考试研究所的标准化期末考试，侧重于评估规模概念的学生访谈，以及目标课程中学生表现的机构记录。

Science education research has revealed that students endeavoring to learn material in courses in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) generally find it difficult to understand processes they are not able to observe directly. These challenges can be especially pronounced when students encounter concepts involving sizes, distances and time frames of very small or very large scales. This project will conduct research and develop innovative teaching strategies and learning assessments that address challenges in scale literacy, which is a measure of an individual's ability to grasp concepts and reconcile phenomena involving widely varying scales of sizes, distances, and time frames and is an important component to one's overall science literacy. Although the project will focus on introductory chemistry and biology courses, the insights gained from the research will be broadly applicable to STEM education in all disciplines. This work will be informed by preliminary research conducted by the investigators of this project at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) that successfully demonstrated student learning gains were achieved in General Chemistry I by integrating scale as a theme into instruction. Furthermore, the prior work led to the development of two assessment instruments, a Scale Concept Inventory (SCI) and a Scale Literacy Skills Test (SLST), which will be utilized in this project. Through this project, scale-themed instruction at UWM will be extended to General Chemistry II and introductory biology (Anatomy and Physiology I) and will contribute to enhancing understanding of the relationship of scale literacy to student success in STEM courses. To facilitate the adoption of effective instructional strategies developed through this project by educators in STEM disciplines other than chemistry or biology, assessment of scale literacy will distinguish domain-general from domain-specific scale conceptions. In addition to the SCI and SLST, specific instruments and data sources that will be utilized to measure project outcomes include standardized final examinations from the American Chemical Society Examinations Institute, student interviews focused on assessing conceptions of scale, and institutional records of student performance in the targeted courses.