Virtually engaging students through collaborative investigation of scientific literature, a case study

Abstract

Critical evaluation and analysis are essential skills of the scientific process which can be further developed through reading primary scientific literature. However, early stage scientists, including undergraduate and graduate students, often face barriers to reading and comprehending primary literature, which can make deeper investigation and evaluation of content even more challenging. To address this core skills gap, we designed a virtual journal club series. This series was designed to keep undergraduate students engaged following restrictions on in-person activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As this initiative was developed and led by graduate students, activities were designed with an emphasis on facilitating student-centered learning outcomes. We used several active learning techniques, including deconstruction of the main message through one-sentence summaries, collaborative student engagement via distinct team roles, conceptual diagrams to reinforce learning and develop communication skills through presentations, and word journals to encourage evaluation and synthesis of ideas across readings. We highlight how these strategies can be used for the design of literature-based training both inside and outside of the classroom. Further, we demonstrate that virtual journal clubs are an effective strategy for enhancing science literacy skills by facilitating student buy-in. THE CASEFacing the closure of university facilities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we looked for a way to safely keep undergraduate student workers engaged in research. Reading scientific literature is critical for helping students develop research questions and seek to answer them using specific approaches or methods (Mulnix, 2003). This furthers student understanding that scientific research is a collaborative process that builds on a much larger body of work to advance the field of study (Gehring & Eastman, 2008). This gives students an opportunity to gain greater self-confidence in their abilities to think scientifically, as well as, enhance science literacyThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

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