MCA: Leveraging student thinking to enhance the undergraduate genetics curriculum

This project aims to serve the national interest by enhancing the undergraduate genetics curriculum to better support student career preparation for critical fields such as biotechnology, agriculture, and medical research. Most physical features, diseases, and behaviors develop through the interactions between many genes as well as the environment, resulting in so-called complex traits. Yet, the current undergraduate genetics curriculum, especially in the introductory and non-majors level courses, perpetuates the misconception that single genes determine traits. This is a problem in the post-genomics era where research on complex traits is common and even members of the public encounter results of such research in the news, at their doctor’s office, or through popular home ancestry tests. Thus, there is need to develop effective curriculum to enhance understanding of complex trait development for everyone. This project will make a novel contribution to the research on genetics education by taking a strengths-based approach to genetics learning. The project focuses on mapping out the range of productive ideas and knowledge that early undergraduates have about complex traits that can help them learn. Cataloguing these ideas is an important first step to designing lessons that are effective at teaching the complex relationships between genes and traits. This project will develop such a curriculum by piloting two genetics lessons using what was learned about student thinking. An additional goal of this project is the development of the PI’s skills in qualitative research methods and this type of knowledge analysis. These new skills will help transform the PI's research and career trajectory to continue her work as a qualitative education researcher. This qualitative research project leverages approaches in Knowledge Analysis, the study of knowledge and learning. Specifically, the project explores how undergraduate students entering introductory courses understand the development of complex traits. This approach differs from much of the past genetics education research which primarily focused on student understanding of traditional Mendelian genetics or on common misconceptions students hold. Taking a strengths-based approach allows researchers to identify useful patterns in student thinking that can inform the design of curriculum for use in the classroom. The project will involve an initial round of student interviews to identify these patterns in students’ thinking, then the development of genetics activities using what was learned from this thinking, and finally, an assessment of the effectiveness of these activities in promoting learning. Collectively, this work will provide examples of how students think about complex traits as well as examples of possible activities. All of this is useful guidance for instructors on how to develop an effective curriculum to support the learning of complex traits. This project is supported by the Mid-Career Advancement program that offers opportunities for scientists and engineers to substantively enhance and advance their research program through synergistic and mutually beneficial partnerships. Funding comes from the NSF IUSE: EDU Program, which supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. 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.