Connecting Chemistry and Biology: Exploring Students' Perceptions of College Courses

There have been few research studies that explore undergraduate students' understanding in different discipinary contexts. Instead,many have theorized the benefits of integrated learning experiences that belnd and synthesize different discipinary knowledge and perspectives. Thse that have been described in the literature vary widely in their implementation and often provide little in the way of evidence on student learning gains. The DBER report confirmed this gap in the research literature, recomming that interdisciplinary studies on crosscutting concepts be conducted.

Interdisciplinary studies could help to increase the coherence of students' learning experience across disciplines by uncovering areas of overlap and gaps in content coverage, and could facilitate an understanding of how to promote the transfer of knowledge from one setting to another. (National Research Council, 2012b, p. 202).

To help fill this gap and to inform cross-disciplinary discussions on the improvement of undergraduate education, I conducted a series of studies using interview data to explore how students perceive the conceptual relationship between their chemistry and biology courses. These studies were done in the context of a multi-year introductory course transformation initiative at Michigan State University. Funded by the AAU STEM Education Initiative, an interdisciplinary effort was underway to transform the introductory biology, chemistry, and physics courses using the lens of three-dimensional learning (Cooper et al., 2015; Laverty et al., 2016; National Research Council, 2012a).

• Cooper, M. M., Caballero, M. D., Ebert-May, D., Fata-Hartley, C. L., Jardeleza, S. E., Krajcik, J. S., … Underwood, S. M. (2015). Challenge faculty to transform STEM learning. Science, 350(6258), 281–282.
• Laverty, J. T., Underwood, S. M., Matz, R. L., Posey, L. A., Carmel, J. H., Caballero, M. D., … Cooper, M. M. (2016). Characterizing college science assessments: The Three-Dimensional Learning Assessment Protocol. PLoS ONE, 11(9), e0162333.
• National Research Council. (2012a). A framework for K-12 science education: Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
• National Research Council. (2012b). Discipline-based education research: Understanding and improving learning in undergraduate science and engineering. National Academies Press.

Connecting Structure–Property and Structure–Function Relationships across the Disciplines of Chemistry and Biology: Exploring Student Perceptions

Kohn, K. P.; Underwood, S. M.; Cooper, M. M. (2018) CBE-Life Sciences Education, 17(2), ar33.

While many university students take science courses in multiple disciplines, little is known about how they perceive common concepts from different disciplinary perspectives. Structure–property and structure–function relationships have long been considered important explanatory concepts in the disciplines of chemistry and biology, respectively. Fourteen university students concurrently enrolled in introductory chemistry and biology courses were interviewed to explore their perceptions regarding:

1. the meaning of structure, properties, and function;
2. the presentation of these concepts in their courses; and
3. how these concepts might be related.

Findings suggest that the concepts of structure and properties were interpreted similarly between chemistry and biology, but students more closely associated the discussion of structure–property relationships with their chemistry courses and structure–function with biology. Despite receiving little in the way of instructional support, nine students proposed a coherent conceptual relationship, indicating that structure determines properties, which determine function. Furthermore, students described ways in which they connected and benefited from their understanding. Though many students are prepared to make these connections, we would encourage instructors to engage in cross-disciplinary conversations to understand the shared goals and disciplinary distinctions regarding these important concepts in an effort to better support students unable to construct these connections for themselves.

Energy Connections and Misconnections across Chemistry and Biology

Kohn, K. P.; Underwood, S. M.; Cooper, M. M. (2018) CBE-Life Sciences Education, 17(1), ar3.

Despite the number of university students who take courses in multiple science disciplines, little is known about how they connect concepts between disciplines. Energy is a concept that underlies all scientific phenomena and, as such, provides an appropriate context in which to investigate student connections and misconnections across disciplines. In this study, university students concurrently enrolled in introductory chemistry and biology were interviewed to explore their perceptions of the integration of energy both within and across the disciplines, and how they attempted to accommodate and reconcile different disciplinary approaches to energy, to inform future, interdisciplinary course reform.

Findings suggest that, while students believed energy to be important to the scientific world and to the disciplines of biology and chemistry, the extent to which it was seen as central to success in their courses varied. Differences were also apparent in students’ descriptions of the molecular-level mechanisms by which energy transfer occurs. These findings reveal a disconnect between how energy is understood and used in introductory science course work and uncovers opportunities to make stronger connections across the disciplines. We recommend that instructors engage in interdisciplinary conversations and consider the perspectives and goals of other disciplines when teaching introductory science courses.