This study describes an iterative process involving faculty and students to identify potential threshold concepts for biochemistry.

Biochemistry is a challenging subject because student learning depends on the application of previously learned concepts from general chemistry and biology to new, biological contexts. This article describes the development of a multiple-choice instrument intended to measure five concepts from general chemistry and three from biology that are considered prerequisite for biochemistry learning. This instrument is specifically designed with a factor structure that includes three multiple-choice items for each of the eight concepts and the most common incorrect ideas that students could have as distractors. It can be used as a pretest to identify students' incorrect ideas about those concepts and to determine if instruction helps students overcome those incorrect ideas when used as a posttest. Results from a confirmatory factor analysis support a very good fit for an eight-factor solution. This manuscript represents a report on the current state of instrument development. We seek to share our methods and instrument design principles with the broader community.

This paper presents preliminary data on how an assessment instrument with a unique structure can be used to identify common incorrect ideas from prior coursework at the beginning of a biochemistry course, and to determine whether these ideas have changed by the end of the course. The twenty-one multiple-choice items address seven different concepts, with a parallel structure for distractors across each set of items to capture consistent incorrect responses. For the current study, the instrument was administered as a pre-test and post-test in majors level biochemistry courses, and the results from two different groups are presented. These results indicated that students performed better on the post-test, resulting in positive mean gain scores for each concept. The structure of the instrument allows data analysis that helped uncover persistent incorrect ideas for some of the concepts, including bond energy and protein alpha helix structure, even after a semester of instruction in biochemistry. The persistent incorrect idea for the protein alpha helix structure uncovered by this assessment has not been reported before in the literature. These results confirm the need to use a robust diagnostic instrument to assess students' understanding of basic concepts at the beginning of the semester, but also stress the need to assess students near the end of the course to gain insight on the effectiveness of instruction. Since each group of students is different, biochemistry instructors are encouraged to use the instrument to identify problems with their own students' incoming ideas rather than rely on published results to inform instruction. In addition to providing assistance for instructors of biochemistry in planning targeted instructional interventions, we anticipate that data collected from this instrument can also be used to identify potential modifications for prerequisite courses.

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As research-based, active learning approaches become more common in biochemistry classrooms, the large lecture course remains the most challenging to transform. Here, we provide a case study demonstrating how process oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) can be implemented in a large class taught in a traditional lecture hall. Course structure and multiple strategies to support student learning and encourage engagement are described in detail. Therefore, this case study could act as a model for others wishing to transform their own courses from lecture to a more student-centered format. Student feedback about the course format was overwhelmingly positive and preliminary assessment data demonstrated student learning gains in several important areas.