Discipline: Science and Mathematics Education
Subcategory: Education
Session: 4
Chelsey Manrique - Florida International University
Co-Author(s): Amy Acosta, Florida International University, Miami, Florida; Kiana Kasmaii, Florida International University, Miami, Florida; Melissa McCartney, Florida International University, Miami, Florida
BACKGROUND/SPECIFIC AIM: Primary scientific literature (PSL) is a great source of information of what scientists are researching. These results discovered by scientists are very important because this is the foundation of our advancements as a society. Most universities do not require students to read PSL as part of the curriculum. For the few courses that do read PSL, is difficulty with deciphering the content within PSL one of the reasons students switch out of STEM majors? The Mccartney lab has partnered with AAAS and the Science in the Classroom project, which features annotated PSL, to further understand how students interact with PSL. Research has shown that worksheets help students by providing guided questions to assist students in understand course content. Crossword puzzles have been shown to help students grow their technical vocabulary (Stansfield, 2014). Similarly, guided data analysis has been shown to help students understand scientific concepts better (Hill and Sharma, 2015). The research question posed incorporates both annotated PSL and worksheets that contain crossword puzzles and data analysis. It has been predicted that combining these techniques into one single intervention will result in both science and non-science majors having more success with reading PSL. METHODS: Three different worksheets have been created to test with focus groups. An accompanying questionnaire has also been developed to investigate each student’s preference regarding worksheets and how useful they thought they were. Two focus groups were created. One focus group consisted solely of science majors and the other was for non-science majors. During the focus groups, students read an annotated article about ecological research that a professor at Florida International University (FIU) conducted. After approximately an hour, students were asked to complete the first portion of the questionnaire, which was collected through qualtrics and then later analyzed. Students were then given the worksheets designed and were allowed to reference back to the annotated ecological article while completing the worksheet. Once the worksheets had been collected, students were asked to complete the last portion of the questionnaire which asked them about the worksheet they completed and how beneficial they deemed it to be. RESULTS: Interesting enough, the science majors gave the same responses before and after the worksheet was completed, indicating that the worksheet did not help them understand the article further. However, non-science majors showed significant improvement in understanding the article after completing the worksheet. All students indicated on the questionnaire that they found worksheet number three, which was the data analysis worksheet, useful. However, only the non-science majors found worksheet number two, the vocabulary crossword puzzle, useful. On average the science majors took about thirty to forty-five minutes to read the article and ten minutes to complete the worksheets. The non-science majors took an average of an hour and fifteen minutes to read the article and twenty-five minutes to complete the worksheet. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that worksheets can be beneficial for undergraduate introductory science courses that use PSL. This would help develop the skills needed for any future scientist as well as spark interest in science and how it is relevant in the word today. REFERENCES: Hill, Matthew and Sharma, Manjula. Research-based worksheets on using multiple representations in science classrooms [online]. Teaching Science, Vol. 61, No. 3, Sep 2015: 37-46. Availability:
Funder Acknowledgement(s): NSF
Faculty Advisor: Melissa McCartney, mmccartn@fiu.edu
Role: I primarily worked in creating the worksheets and analyzing the data specific to the worksheets.