Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have been shown to lead to multiple student benefits, but much is unknown about how CUREs lead to specific student outcomes. In this study, we examined the extent to which students making “broadly relevant novel discoveries” impacted student project ownership by comparing the experiences of students in a CURE and a traditional lab course. The CURE and traditional lab were similar in most aspects; students were exposed to an identical curriculum taught by the same instructor. However, there was one major difference between the two types of courses: the type of data that the students produced. Students in the traditional lab characterized the immune system of wild-type mice, thereby confirming results already known to the scientific community, while students in the CURE characterized the immune system of a mutant strain of mice, which produced broadly relevant novel discoveries. Compared with traditional lab students, CURE students reported higher cognitive and emotional ownership over their projects. Students’ perceptions of collaboration and making broadly relevant novel discoveries were significantly and positively related to their cognitive and emotional ownership. This work provides insight into the importance of integrating opportunities for broadly relevant novel discoveries in lab courses.

In two studies, it was found that the perception that evolution is atheistic is related to less comfort while learning evolution, more perceived conflict between religious beliefs and evolution, and lower acceptance of evolution among religious undergraduate college biology students.

For over 50 years instructor humor has been recognized as a way to positively impact student cognitive and affective learning. However, no study has explored humor exclusively in the context of college science courses, which have the reputation of being difficult and boring. The majority of studies that explore humor have assumed that students perceive instructor humor to be funny, yet students likely perceive some instructor humor as unfunny or offensive. Further, evidence suggests that women perceive certain subjects to be more offensive than men, yet we do not know what impact this may have on the experience of women in the classroom. To address these gaps in the literature, we surveyed students across 25 different college science courses about their perceptions of instructor humor in college science classes, which yielded 1637 student responses. Open-coding methods were used to analyze student responses to a question about why students appreciate humor. Multinomial regression was used to identify whether there are gender differences in the extent to which funny, unfunny, and offensive humor influenced student attention to course content, instructor relatability, and student sense of belonging. Logistic regression was used to examine gender differences in what subjects students find funny and offensive when joked about by college science instructors. Nearly 99% of students reported that they appreciate instructor humor and reported that it positively changes the classroom atmosphere, improves student experiences during class, and enhances the student-instructor relationship. We found that funny humor tends to increase student attention to course content, instructor relatability, and student sense of belonging. Conversely, offensive humor tends to decrease instructor relatability and student sense of belonging. Lastly, we identified subjects that males were more likely to find funny and females were more likely to find offensive if a college science instructor were to joke about them.

An evolution education study spanning 77 courses and 17 states found that Black and Hispanic students’ stronger than average religiosity explains their lower evolution acceptance. This indicates a need to take into account students’ religious culture and background to teach evolution in an inclusive way.

Instructor's use of humor in college classrooms is generally viewed positively by students and has been correlated with positive student learning, motivation, perceptions of instructor immediacy, and classroom environment. However, the majority of studies on instructor humor used in college classrooms have explored student perception of funny humor and not of unfunny or offensive humor. Female students, who are more likely to report feeling unwelcome in college science courses, may be particularly affected by instructor use of unfunny or offensive humor. However, few studies have explored how male and female students perceive instructor humor and more specifically, whether male and female students perceive different subjects as offensive. Further, no humor study has been conducted in the context of college science courses.This study was conducted as a course‐based undergraduate research experience (CURE) in biology education with 12 undergraduate and 4 graduate students. Students in the CURE engaged in the process of selecting a research question, iteratively developing a survey tool, collecting data, and analyzing data. We surveyed 1637 undergraduate students across 25 different college science courses at one institution and found that 97% of students appreciate when instructors use humor in college science classes. Using a combination of grounded theory and content analysis, we identified 12 distinct reasons for why students appreciate instructor use of humor in science classes, including that it enhances student learning, makes students more excited to attend class, and makes the instructor more approachable. We found that instructor use of funny humor positively impacted student sense‐of‐belonging to the science classroom, instructor relatability, and student attention to course content. We also found that while instructor use of unfunny humor appeared to neither have a positive nor a negative effect on students, instructor use of offensive humor negatively impacted student sense‐of‐belonging to the science classroom and instructor relatability. There was no difference in the extent to which instructor use of humor positively or negatively affected male and female students. Lastly, we identified a suite of subjects that students broadly perceive as funny, yet less than 5% of students perceive as offensive. We also identified a suite of subjects that some students perceive as funny, yet more than 50% of students perceive as offensive. Specifically, female students were more likely to be offended by humor used by instructors. We hope that these findings will aid in the development of more inclusive classrooms by encouraging instructors to use humor that is most likely to benefit all students.Support or Funding InformationNoneThis abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.