Data‐rich textbook figures promote core competencies: Comparison of two textbooks

Abstract

Many molecular biology and biochemistry instructors have altered their classroom behavior in favor of evidence-based, active learning instructional strategies. Overwhelming evidence confirms that lecture-only classrooms are detrimental to student learning outcomes, but we know less about the impact textbooks have on students outside the classroom. Two influential projects, the AP Biology redesign and Vision and Change, called for extensive restructuring of course content and hoped that textbooks would be restructured accordingly. This study evaluated all figures and tables from two introductory biology textbooks to quantify how well they implement recommendations from Vision and Change and AP Biology redesign. We documented significant differences among figures and tables when looking for experimental data, questions for students to answer, and quantitative interpretation. Using think-aloud interviews, we interrogated whether students engage differently with figures from the two textbooks. When figures provided take-home messages, students relied on written text rather than analyzing the graphical information for their understanding. Students frequently employed words from summaries within the figures to construct "inflated explanations" that mimicked comprehension.

Understanding changes in genetic literacy over time and in genetic research participants

“…In the introductory biology classroom, data-based learning, or identifying biological concepts from previously implemented studies, promotes active learning and retention. 40 Early introduction to research can also build students’ excitement for and success in science. 41 Our data suggest that active participation in a research study, combined with personal experience with a genetic condition, can result in higher genetic literacy.…”

A Comprehensive Framework for Comparing Textbooks: Insights from the Literature and Experts

“…Moreover, the frequency and intensity required by textbooks for training skills partly determines the learning opportunities that the society provides for its students [22]. For instance, researchers suggested that textbooks would be beneficial to students if they could approach and learn from experimental raw data instead of educationally processed tables or figures [23]. Zhou [2] did a vocabulary analysis of English major textbooks and revealed that the increased frequency of a new word leads to increase in learning opportunities for the students.…”

“…Due to the aforementioned reasons, comparing textbooks has gained vast research attention [15,[31][32][33]. However, to the best of our knowledge, most of the extant research has evaluated and compared textbooks in terms of limited indicators of structure [34], content [23,32,35], learning expectations, and/or language analysis [20,36]. For example, to compare the presentation of fractions in textbooks of fifth and sixth grades, Yang et al [31] mainly examined problems and exercises.…”

“…For example, a body of research did not take factors important to modern society and education into account, such as technology. Finby et al [23] treated videos embedded within two introductory biology textbooks as irrelevant items and, therefore, did not examine them. Furthermore, few researchers have explored the frequency with which their examined textbooks were updated, which implies that they have no understanding of whether the contents of textbooks are supported by the latest research.…”

An experimental study of the effects of scaffolding and context in training graphical literacy among 2- and 4-year college students.

“…Here, we used an experimental research design to examine the effectiveness of different approaches to supporting students' graphical literacy skills. In particular, our goal was to identify the learning environment that would best support students' ability to draw conclusions about complex graphs (i.e., graphs with more than one independent variable) in which background information about the variables is provided, given that this is how graphs are typically used in STEM textbooks (e.g., Finby et al, 2021). Our findings suggest that a learning environment can be more effective when it is structured in one (or both) of two ways-through scaffolding of graph and question complexity and/or providing additional context and background information about the variables used, with the most effective training combining both of these design features.…”