Award Abstract # 1822490
Investigating Deliberative Argumentation in Large-Lecture Biology

NSF Org: DUE
Division Of Undergraduate Education
Recipient: WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY
Initial Amendment Date: August 11, 2018
Latest Amendment Date: July 15, 2021
Award Number: 1822490
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Ellen Carpenter
DUE
 Division Of Undergraduate Education
EDU
 Directorate for STEM Education
Start Date: October 1, 2018
End Date: August 31, 2023 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $298,833.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $403,422.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2018 = $298,833.00
FY 2021 = $104,589.00
History of Investigator:
  • Erika Offerdahl (Principal Investigator)
    eofferdahl@vetmed.wsu.edu
  • Andy Cavagnetto (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Washington State University
240 FRENCH ADMINISTRATION BLDG
PULLMAN
WA  US  99164-0001
(509)335-9661
Sponsor Congressional District: 05
Primary Place of Performance: Washington State University
Biotech/Life Sciences 431
Pullman
WA  US  99164-7520
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
05
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): XRJSGX384TD6
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): IUSE
Primary Program Source: 04001819DB NSF Education & Human Resource
04002122DB NSF Education & Human Resource
Program Reference Code(s): 102Z, 8209, 9178
Program Element Code(s): 199800
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.076

ABSTRACT

Modern biology research rapidly generates new and complex expansive information. This flux of new knowledge makes it impossible to teach a complete body of knowledge to future biologists, much less to educate an informed public about biology. Instead, modern biology instruction increasingly emphasizes teaching of scientific practices, such as interpreting data and arguing from evidence. These topics have long been the purview of laboratory biology courses. However, embedding them into large introductory lecture courses has the potential to reach more students, especially those who enroll in the introductory courses to fulfill general education requirements and those taking their first science classes as they prepare to enter a STEM major. This project will develop approaches and measures to incorporate deliberative argumentation into large-lecture biology classes. Deliberative argumentation emphasizes collaborative approaches and active searches for alternative explanations, which are practices that are widely used by research scientists. Teaching students to take part in these practices lets them "think like a scientist" and encourages them to stick with science as a college major and to consider a career in a STEM field. Large introductory lecture courses often serve as gatekeeper courses, with high failure rates that discourage students from continuing in STEM majors. Even more troubling is that failure rates in these classes are often disproportionately high for underrepresented minority students. Incorporating deliberative argumentation into these classes is a strategy to help students develop a conceptual understanding of the topics that they study, which may in turn help students to earn better grades and pass the course, providing motivation to stick with a STEM major. Promoting practices in the classroom that improve the teaching and learning of science can help to retain students in STEM, which supports the national interest of developing an informed citizenry and building a larger scientific workforce.

The goal of this three-year Exploration and Design project is to increase knowledge about how the rhetorical practices of scientists, specifically deliberative argumentation, can be implemented and leveraged for learning core concepts in large-lecture biology courses. Using Asterhan and Schwarz's argumentation-to-learn framework, the project will focus on individual characteristics of students (i.e. content knowledge and skills necessary to productively engage in argumentation), argumentation task design, and supports (i.e. teacher scaffolds and discourse instructions). The project is designed to determine how deliberative argumentation should be structured in large-lecture biology to support student learning by accomplishing four aims: 1) Optimize pre-class activities to support deliberative argumentation; 2) Refine and demonstrate feasibility of in-class argumentation activities; 3) Develop and validate measures of deliberative argumentation; and 4) Pilot argumentation activities in large-lecture introductory undergraduate biology courses. In doing so, the proposed research will lay the foundation for future efficacy and effectiveness studies by establishing the feasibility and potential of an argumentation-for-learning approach in large-lecture introductory biology. Project personnel will adopt a quasi-experimental design to identify effective pre-class activities for preparing students for argumentation (Aim #1). An iterative design-based research (DBR) approach will be used to test and refine the design of argumentation sessions for large-lecture biology (Aim #2). The project intends to develop and validate a measure of deliberative argumentation (Aim #3) to inform the iterative argumentation session design. Project efforts will conclude with a pilot study, which will apply a repeated measures experimental design to determine the potential impact of the argumentation intervention (Aim #4). The proposed research will broaden understanding about "what works" in creating student-centered undergraduate large-lecture biology courses. Specifically, the project will generate evidence regarding the efficacy of two pre-class activities in preparing students for active learning instruction and to identify key instructional supports for argumentation-to-learn. The study is designed to advance knowledge in the field of argumentation by creating a robust and replicable measure of deliberative argumentation.

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.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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Arneson, Jessie B. and Woodbury, Jacob and Anderson, Jacey and Collins, Larry B. and Cavagnetto, Andy and Davis, William B. and Offerdahl, Erika G. "Splicing it together: Using primary data to explore RNA splicing and gene expression in large-lecture introductory biology" CourseSource , v.9 , 2022 https://doi.org/10.24918/cs.2022.11 Citation Details
Woodbury, Jacob and Arneson, Jessie B. and Anderson, Jacey and Collins, Larry and Cavagnetto, Andy and Davis, William and Offerdahl, Erika G. "Garden Variety Mutations: Using Primary Data to Understand the Central Dogma in Large-Lecture Introductory Biology" CourseSource , v.9 , 2022 https://doi.org/10.24918/cs.2022.43 Citation Details

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

In 2011, Vision and Change: A Call to Action provided explicit recommendations for improving undergraduate biology education by leveraging research-informed instructional practices (RBIPs) to develop students’ competencies with core scientific concepts and disciplinary practices. In response, a team at Washington State University (WSU) embarked on a project to transform undergraduate biology instruction at the introductory level. Initial efforts included integrating a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) and increasing the use of RBIPs in the lecture (e.g. frequent low-stakes assessments using clickers, model-based activities). A decline in overall course failure rates across all demographic categories was observed, however rates remained higher for persons excluded due to ethnicity and/or race (PEERs) and first-generation students. Further, PEERs performed one letter grade lower on average and motivation was lower than non-PEERs 

Seeking to improve on our initial efforts, we were intrigued by the K-12 literature about argumentation-to-learn pedagogies. Argumentation-to-learn has been shown to increase all students’ conceptual understanding, with disproportionately positive gains for female-identifying and low-achieving students. Further, argumentation is a disciplinary practice of scientists; it is the process through which scientists evaluate evidence and generate new knowledge. Thus, we viewed argumentation-to-learn as a promising and more equitable approach for developing undergraduate students’ competencies with core biological ideas and disciplinary practices. Yet the research on argumentation in undergraduate STEM contexts was sparse at the time and most studies reported on argumentation in courses with low course enrollments – the opposite of what introductory STEM courses look like at larger universities. The overarching goal of our project was to understand argumentation-to-learn in large, introductory biology courses. 

Intellectual Merit 

Our project adopted a design-based research (DBR) approach, which in contrast to experimental approaches, more often has direct implications for practice while simultaneously generating new knowledge. This approach facilitated our iterative design and evaluation of argumentation-based activities for use in large-enrollment, undergraduate introductory biology These activities are published available for download free of charge at https://qubeshub.org/community/groups/coursesource/.   

During the initial design phase, we collected student performance data and found that students performed better on exam questions about argumentation content as compared to content taught through interactive lecture. Further, we observed that increases in performance were greater for lower-performing students. We also disaggregated the data and noted that we saw disproportionately positive increases in performance for female-identifying students and PEERs on exam content that was taught using the argumentation activities. 

Our argumentation activities required students to make sense of data from the scientific literature. Prior research indicated that the nature of argumentation and the quality of student learning is influenced by how an argumentation task is framed. This is because the framing of a task influences what features of a problem are attended to, the information retrieved by an individual while solving a problem, and the ways in which the individual uses these resources to construct and organize knowledge. We framed our argumentation activities as either an inductive or a deductive task, both of which are authentic ways in which scientists make inferences from data. Performance on deductive tasks was higher than inductive. We hypothesize that the deductive framing increased exam performance by cueing students to retrieve and/or connect across more resources than during the inductive tasks, thereby providing better scaffolds for integrating new information with their existing knowledge. Subsequent analysis of students’ written work supported this hypothesis. 

The extensive data that were collected and used to inform the iterative design process also yielded mechanistic insights into how argumentation activities affect student learning. Audio recordings of students’ discussion during the argumentation activities revealed that disagreements were correlated with higher exam performance. Additionally, our data revealed that the type of authority demonstrated by small group leaders affects the frequency of disagreements; groups with low-authority leaders were more likely to support disagreements during argumentation sessions 

Broader impacts 

Our research intervention has implications for promoting diversity and inclusivity in undergraduate science and, more broadly, STEM education. We observed a significant reduction in performance gaps, particularly for women and PEERS By narrowing performance differentials, we are contributing to a more inclusive academic environment, where individuals from diverse backgrounds can thrive and excel. Our findings suggest that engaging students in authentic scientific practices like argumentation may enhance the representation of marginalized groups in STEM fields thereby enriching the intellectual landscape by harnessing the talents and perspectives of a broader spectrum of individuals. 

  

 


Last Modified: 03/06/2024
Modified by: Erika G Offerdahl

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