The majority of students who enroll in undergraduate biology courses will eventually be employed in non-STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) business occupations. This work explores how representations of industry in undergraduate biology textbooks could impact STEM learning for these students and their ability to apply this learning in their chosen work. We used text analysis to identify passages with references to industry in 29 textbooks. Each passage was categorized for relevance to health or environment, for implied positive or negative connotations, and for descriptions of synergy or conflict between science and industry. We found few passages describing applications of STEM learning in non-STEM business occupations and a paucity of content to support context-based learning for students aiming at business careers. A significant number of passages embodied negative connotations regarding industry. Notable passages highlighted irregular or fraudulent business practices or included simplistic caricatures of business practice. We discuss how the representation of industry in these textbooks may impact student engagement, context-based learning, the ability of students to critically apply STEM learning in industry or business occupations, and heuristics that guide intuitive perceptions about the intersection between science and industry.
Biological thought increasingly recognizes the centrality of the genome in constituting and regulating processes ranging from cellular systems to ecology and evolution. In this paper, we ask whether genomics is similarly positioned as a core concept in the instructional sequence for undergraduate biology. Using quantitative methods, we analyzed the order in which core biological concepts were introduced in textbooks for first-year general and human biology. Statistical analysis was performed using self-organizing map algorithms and conventional methods to identify clusters of terms and their relative position in the books. General biology textbooks for both majors and nonmajors introduced genome-related content after text related to cell biology and biological chemistry, but before content describing higher-order biological processes. However, human biology textbooks most often introduced genomic content near the end of the books. These results suggest that genomics is not yet positioned as a core concept in commonly used textbooks for first-year biology and raises questions about whether such textbooks, or courses based on the outline of these textbooks, provide an appropriate foundation for understanding contemporary biological science.
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