Postdoctoral Fellowship: STEMEdIPRF: Exploring the use of mechanistic reasoning in undergraduate physiology education

这个项目旨在通过探索学生如何在他们的生理学学习中发展和使用机械推理来服务于国家利益。科学中最基本的核心能力之一是机械推理，这是一种强大的思维形式，阐述了系统的基本组成部分如何以及为什么会产生现象。该项目专门计划探索生理学研究中机械推理是如何演变的，生理学是大多数希望从事医疗保健职业的本科生都会选修的课程。机械推理是科学推理的一种形式，它使学习者能够对复杂的现象产生强有力的预测和强有力的解释。通过采访具有不同生理学经验水平的个人，例如本科生、医学生和生理学或护理学教师，该项目希望揭示机械推理是如何在这些不同专业水平上使用的，其广泛目标是加强本科生理学教学，以有效解决机械推理问题。通过将教学重点放在机械推理上，学生可能会减少对记忆的依赖，并培养简化复杂问题的能力，帮助他们在课程中取得成功。以前的机械推理工作主要集中在简单的系统上，但生理学中的现象是复杂和相互关联的。这种现象涉及多个标量级别的实体，并利用来自多个学科的概念。拟议的项目将通过对具有一系列生理学专业知识的个人进行半结构化访谈来调查机械推理。每个人都将被要求大声思考复杂的现象，并解释他们理解未知事物的一般方法。这些数据将被用来识别本科生使用机械推理的方式，并将本科生的推理与更专业的学生进行比较，从而加深对机械推理如何发展的理解，以及如何在本科生理学教育中有效地解决机械推理的核心思想。该项目由STEM教育博士后研究奖学金(STEM Ed PRF)计划资助，该计划旨在提高STEM、STEM教育、教育和相关学科的新近博士的研究知识、技能和实践，以促进他们从事基础和应用研究，促进该领域知识的进步。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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 exploring how students develop and use mechanistic reasoning in their study of physiology. One of the most fundamental core competencies in science is mechanistic reasoning, a powerful form of thinking that addresses how and why the underlying components of a system give rise to phenomena. The project plans specifically to explore how mechanistic reasoning evolves in the study of physiology, a course taken by most undergraduate students hoping to pursue careers in healthcare. Mechanistic reasoning is a form of scientific reasoning that enables learners to generate powerful predictions and robust explanations for complex phenomena. By interviewing individuals with differing levels of physiology experience, for example, undergraduate students, medical students, and physiology or nursing faculty, the project hopes to uncover how mechanistic reasoning is used at these various levels of expertise, with the broad goal of enhancing undergraduate physiology instruction to effectively address mechanistic reasoning. By focusing instruction on mechanistic reasoning, students may rely less on memorization and develop the ability to simplify complex problems, helping them to succeed in their coursework.Previous work on mechanistic reasoning has focused primarily on simple systems, but the phenomena in physiology are complex and interrelated. Such phenomena involve entities at multiple scalar levels and draw on concepts from multiple disciplines. The proposed project will investigate mechanistic reasoning by conducting semi-structured interviews with individuals with a range of physiology expertise. Individuals will be asked to both think aloud through complex phenomena and explain their general approaches to making sense of the unknown. These data will be used to identify patterns in the ways undergraduate physiology students use mechanistic reasoning and to compare undergraduate students’ reasoning to those more expert, leading to an enhanced understanding of how mechanistic reasoning develops and how to effectively address the core idea of mechanistic reason in undergraduate physiology education. This project is funded by the STEM Education Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (STEM Ed PRF) program that aims to enhance the research knowledge, skills, and practices of recent doctorates in STEM, STEM education, education, and related disciplines to advance their preparation to engage in fundamental and applied research that advances knowledge within the field.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.