Grappling With Graphs: New Tools For Improving Graphing Practices of Undergraduate Biology Students

该项目旨在通过帮助教育工作者了解学生如何学习准确地制作和解释图表来服务于国家利益。所有STEM学科都使用图形来显示、解释和分析数据。有了今天的数据分析和可视化工具，绘图技能变得更加重要，因为公众获得了更多的访问数据库和传播平台的机会，这些平台可以广泛地共享准确和有缺陷的图表。在生物学中，绘图尤其困难，因为广泛的主题导致了许多不同的图形上下文，并且数据往往是嘈杂的。目前，教育工作者并不了解学生学习绘制生物数据的各种途径，也不了解这些途径如何根据学生的背景而有所不同。同样还不清楚的是教学干预的类型，可以帮助学生发展绘图专业知识。这个项目将生成信息来回答这些问题。具体地说，该项目将适应、发展和完善在生物学背景下的绘图教学工具。该项目将涉及来自不同机构的讲师，这些机构开设生物学入门课程，招收大量来自不同人口背景的学生。使用一种名为GraphSmarts的图形构建工具，研究人员可以检查学生在不同图形任务中的表现，以揭示学生用来提高其图形相关能力的策略。本项目建立并扩展了先前的工作，使用GraphSmarts工具中的龙虾-海带场景检查本科生的绘图实践。该项目将为入门生物学绘图评估开发四种新的场景。这些场景将集中在生理学、细胞生物学和生态学的主题上。来自美国各地不同院校类型的教师将参加一个教师指导网络，设计新的评估，这些评估与原来的龙虾-海带情景具有上下文无关的特性。使用逆向设计策略，教师将开发活动来教授生物学入门课程中的新场景。然后，使用GraphSmarts工具，收集学生表现的数据来衡量学生的学习并验证新的绘图评估。当学生探索新场景时，该项目将收集定性和定量数据，包括学生图表和问题答案。从新设计的评估中收集的信息将使教育工作者对学生的绘图能力有更细致的了解。研究结果将帮助STEM领域的教育工作者了解学生在理解图形时面临的障碍，以及解决这些障碍的潜在方法。该项目将生产开放获取的材料，这些材料将在高使用率的QUBE网络上共享。NSF IUSE: EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。这是参与学生学习轨道的三级项目，通过IUSE项目支持有前途的实践和工具的创建、探索和实施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project aims to serve the national interest by helping educators understand how students learn to accurately make and interpret graphs. All STEM disciplines use graphs to display, interpret, and analyze data. With today’s data analysis and visualization tools, graphing skills are even more crucial as the public gains greater access to databases and dissemination platforms that can widely share both accurate and flawed graphs. Graphing is particularly difficult in biology, where a wide range of topics leads to many different graphic contexts and where the data tend to be noisy. Currently, educators do not understand the various paths students take in learning to graph biological data or how those paths may differ based on a student’s background. Also not yet understood are the types of instructional interventions that could help students develop graphing expertise. This project will generate information to answer each of these questions. Specifically, the project will adapt, develop, and refine instructional tools for teaching graphing in a biology context. The project will involve instructors from diverse institutions that have introductory biology courses that enroll large numbers of students from different demographic backgrounds. Using a graph construction tool called GraphSmarts, the researchers can examine student performance on different graphing tasks to reveal strategies students use to improve their graphing-related abilities. This project builds upon and expands on previous work examining the graphing practices of undergraduate students using a lobster-kelp scenario in the GraphSmarts tool. The project will develop four new scenarios for introductory biology graphing assessments. These scenarios will focus on topics in physiology, cell biology, and ecology. Instructors from different institutional types across the United States will participate in a Faculty Mentoring Network to design new assessments that share context-independent attributes with the original lobster-kelp scenario. Using backward design strategies, the instructors will develop activities to teach the new scenarios in their introductory biology courses. Then, using the GraphSmarts tool, data on student performance will be collected to measure student learning and to validate the new graphing assessments. As students explore the new scenarios, the project will gather qualitative and quantitative data including student graphs and answers to questions. The information gathered from the newly designed assessments will provide educators with a more nuanced understanding of student graphing competencies. The results will help educators across STEM fields understand barriers that students face in understanding graphing, as well as potential solutions to those barriers. The project will produce open-access materials that will be shared on the high used QUBE network. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. This is a Level III project in the Engaged Student Learning track, through which the IUSE program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.