Tools for Change: Measuring Student Conceptual Understanding Across Undergraduate Biology Programs Using Bio-MAPS Assessments

Abstract

Assessing learning across a biology major can help departments monitor achievement of broader program-level goals and identify opportunities for curricular improvement. However, biology departments have lacked suitable tools to measure learning at the program scale. To address this need, we developed four freely available assessments—called Biology-Measuring Achievement and Progression in Science or Bio-MAPS—for general biology, molecular biology, ecology/evolution, and physiology programs. When administered at multiple time points in a curriculum, these instruments can provide departments with information on how student conceptual understanding changes across a major and help guide curricular modifications to enhance learning.

BioSkills Guide: Development and National Validation of a Tool for Interpreting theVision and ChangeCore Competencies

“…Institutional change has been shown to be most effective when the work is envisioned and led by those directly impacted by the change (Henderson et al, 2010). A similar grassroots approach was used to develop Vision and Change itself, as well as related frameworks elaborating the core concepts (Brownell et al, 2014a;Cary and Branchaw, 2017), which have been widely utilized in our field (Smith et al, 2019;Branchaw et al, 2020). We believe this approach is another reason why Vision and Change has been so impactful in biology education.…”

BioSkills Guide: Development and National Validation of a Tool for Interpreting the Vision and Change Core Competencies

“…Institutional change has been shown to be most effective when the work is envisioned and led by those directly impacted by the change (Henderson, 2010). A similar grassroots approach was used to develop Vision and Change itself, as well as related frameworks elaborating the core concepts and Cary & Branchaw, 2017), which have been widely utilized in our field (Branchaw et al, 2020;Smith et al, 2019). We believe this approach is another reason why Vision and Change has been so impactful in biology education.…”

Resources for Teaching and Assessing the Vision and Change Biology Core Concepts

“…Another set of assessments, collectively called Biology-Measuring Achievement and Progression in Science (Bio-MAPS), were designed to assess biology majors' understanding of the Vision and Change core concepts at the departmental level (Smith et al, 2019). Each of these assessment tools followed a similar set of design principles and is presented to students as restricted-response, multiple T/F, or likely-unlikely items designed to assess the conceptual understanding of a large number of students outside class.…”

“…There are four separate instruments: general biology (GenBio-MAPS; Couch et al, 2019), molecular biology (Molecular Biology Capstone Assessment, MCBA; Couch et al, 2015), physiology (Phys-MAPS; Semsar et al, 2019), and ecology/evolution (EcoEvo-MAPS; Summers et al, 2018). All of the Bio-MAPS instruments are freely available and can be administered through an online web portal at http://cperl.lassp.cornell.edu/bio-maps (Smith et al, 2019).…”