Scientific publications, textbooks, and online educational resources rely on illustrated figures to communicate about molecular structures like genes and chromosomes. Published figures have the potential to shape how learners think about these molecular structures and their functions, so it is important that figures are clear, unambiguous, and…

Most biology undergraduates learn about mutations in multiple classrooms throughout their college career. Understanding personalised genome test results, genome editing controversies, and the appearance of new variants of viruses or antibiotic resistant bacteria all require foundational knowledge about mutations. However, the abstract nature of…

Exposure to information about genetics is at an all-time high, while a full understanding of the biocultural complexity of human difference is low. This paper demonstrates the value of an "anthropological approach" to enhance genetics education in biology, anthropology, and other related disciplines, when teaching about human differences…

The need to make higher education curricula gender-inclusive is increasingly pressing as student cohorts diversify. We adopted a student-staff partnership approach to design, integrate, and evaluate a module that taught first-year science students the difference between biological sex, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation in…

In the context of what are often highly compartmentalised curriculum requirements, this article considers the cyclical nature of the acquisition and transfer of knowledge in the education system in relation to those questions that transcend individual subjects as set out in traditional curriculum divisions. It also considers the detrimental…

Concept inventories (CIs) are valuable tools for educators that assess student achievement and identify misconceptions held by students. Results of student responses can be used to adjust or develop new instructional methods for a given topic. The regulation of gene expression in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes is an important concept in genetics…

The aspiration of biology education is to give students tools to apply knowledge learned in the classroom to everyday life. Genetic modification is a real-world biological concept that relies on an in-depth understanding of the molecular behavior of DNA and proteins. This study investigated undergraduate biology students' conceptions of…

Understanding genetic drift is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of biology, yet it is difficult to learn because it combines the conceptual challenges of both evolution and randomness. To help assess strategies for teaching genetic drift, we have developed and evaluated the Genetic Drift Inventory (GeDI), a concept inventory that measures…

Despite the impact of genetics on daily life, biology undergraduates understand some key genetics concepts poorly. One concept requiring attention is dominance, which many students understand as a fixed property of an allele or trait and regularly conflate with frequency in a population or selective advantage. We present the Dominance Concept…

We have designed, developed, and validated a 17-question Meiosis Concept Inventory (Meiosis CI) to diagnose student misconceptions on meiosis, which is a fundamental concept in genetics. We targeted large introductory biology and genetics courses and used published methodology for question development, which included the validation of questions by…

This study explores biology undergraduates' misconceptions about genetic drift. We use qualitative and quantitative methods to describe students' definitions, identify common misconceptions, and examine differences before and after instruction on genetic drift. We identify and describe five overarching categories that include 16 distinct…

This study is an investigation into the science literacy of college genetics students who were given a modified curriculum to address specific teaching and learning problems from a previous class. This study arose out of an interest by the professor and researcher to determine how well students in the class Human Genetics in the 21st Century…

Meiosis is a biological concept that is both complex and important for students to learn. This study aims to explore first-year biology students' explanations of the process of meiosis, using an explicit theoretical framework provided by the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) model. The research was based on responses of 334…

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a conceptually difficult technique that embodies many fundamental biological processes. Traditionally, students have struggled to analyze PCR results due to an incomplete understanding of the biological concepts (theory) of DNA replication and strand complementarity. Here we describe the design of a novel…

One of the unifying themes of modern biology is evolution. In introductory biology courses, evolution is studied in some detail and used as a focal point for many courses. For many teachers of those courses, the greatest frustration is their inability to help students become Darwinian. Students do not reject evolutionary ideas, but they quickly…