Community-Based Inquiry in Allied Health Biochemistry Promotes Equity by Improving Critical Thinking for Women and Showing Promise for Increasing Content Gains for Ethnic Minority Students

Abstract

In the Community-Based Inquiry (CBI) instructional method, cooperative student groups complete case study activities based on scientific literature and conduct their own laboratory investigations that address authentic community needs. This study compared critical thinking and content knowledge outcomes between traditional Introduction to Biochemistry lecture/laboratory and CBI curricula with human health case studies and local elementary school lunch nutrition laboratory investigations. CBI students experienced statistically significant critical thinking gains of medium effect size with female and male equity, whereas traditional students demonstrated no critical thinking gains with statistically significant sex disparity of medium effect size. Bifurcating student ethnicity into White and all other respondents revealed that the Other students gained statistically significantly more content knowledge in CBI than in the traditional group with a large effect size. Chemistry faculty concerned with developing both content knowledge and critical thinking skill in all students should consider using CBI not only for majors, but also for non-majors such as allied health students.

Active Learning in Flipped Life Science Courses Promotes Development of Critical Thinking Skills

“…, 2008 ; Kim et al. , 2013 ; Green­wald and Quitadamo, 2014 ; Carson, 2015 ; Goeden et al. , 2015 ; Snyder and Wiles, 2015 ).…”

Where Does CER Stand on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion? Insights from a Literature Review

“…Researchers also discussed strategies to reform curricula to be more relevant, inclusive, and social justice-oriented. ,− In their commentary, Lasker and colleagues argued that just revising instructional practices is not enough to enhance minority students’ success in chemistry and that chemistry curricula also need to be made relevant to students’ experience outside of schools. One approach to make chemistry more relevant is to connect chemistry with community outreach and engage students to solve community issues with their chemistry knowledge and skills. , Other researchers reworked chemistry curricula to link them to underrepresented students’ unique cultural practices, such as Indigenous Australians’ practices of cooking, medicine, and art . In the context of high school chemistry, Morales-Doyle described how a novel curriculum called Justice Centered Science Pedagogy not only supports students’ academic achievement but also allows them to think critically about science and society and position themselves as “transformative intellectuals” capable of enacting social change.…”

Implementation of a Biomedical Engineering Research Experience for African–American High School Students at a Tier One Research University

“…All of our findings can be organized into five overarching themes: Increasing interest, and skills and educational development are an important initial outcome and goal of project ENGAGES. However, these are not the only components that will drive success for students from underrepresented groups in STEM fields [8][9][10][11]. There is an important role for mentorship and successful mentors willing to invest time in the research training and support for the development of independent research projects [21,22].…”

“…Engagement of high school students in unique STEM experiences continues to play a profound role in recruiting and retaining bright young minds in the ever-important STEM fields. As such, involving underrepresented students in some form of research or inquiry early in their high school or college education can be a key to success in STEM fields [7][8][9]. Specifically, hands-on STEM engagement activities foster and maintain positive STEM dispositions at the middle school and high school levels [10].…”