Undergraduates’ understanding of cardiovascular phenomena

Michael, Joel A.; Wenderoth, Mary Pat; Modell, Harold I.; Cliff, William; Horwitz, Barbara A; McHale, Philip; Richardson, Daniel R.; Silverthorn, Dee U.; Williams, Stephen; Whitescarver, Shirley A.

doi:10.1152/advan.00002.2002

Cited by 72 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…For principles, students learned two fundamental macroscopic regularities that apply within and beyond body systems but are still learnable within a single session so their transfer could be investigated. Students learned that pressure differentials determine the direction of blood flow in the cardiovascular system, which then applies to gas movement in the respiratory system as well as fluid flow more generally (Michael et al 2002;Yip 1998). They also learned that the large collective surface area of capillaries increases diffusion rates, which then applies to increasing the rates of diffusion across the alveoli in the respiratory system as well as the rates of many other physical and chemical processes (e.g., dissolving, heat transfer, chemical reactions; Barrow 1995, 2007).…”

Section: Content Focusmentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of framing on transfer: initial evidence from a tutoring experiment

2010

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This paper investigates the idea that the framing of learning and transfer contexts can influence students' propensity to transfer what they have learned. We predicted that transfer would be promoted by framing contexts in an expansive manner in which students are positioned as having the opportunity to contribute to larger conversations that extend across time, places, people, and topics. A one-on-one tutoring experiment was conducted to test this hypothesis by manipulating framing as either expansive or its opposite (bounded) within a complex instructional learning ecology. We investigated the degree to which high school biology students transferred knowledge from a learning session about the cardiovascular system to a transfer-of-learning session about the respiratory system depending on framing condition. Consistent with the framing hypothesis, students in the expansive condition were generally more likely to transfer facts, a conceptual principle, and a learning strategy from one system to another.Keywords Transfer-of-learning Á Human tutoring Á Framing Á Social interactions and learning Á Self-explaining Transfer-of-learning, or the application of something that has been learned in one context to another context, is one of the most important educational phenomena. Without it, what students learn in school and elsewhere would have little effect on the rest of their lives. Transfer is also one of the most longstanding and difficult research topics in education and psychology (Barnett and Ceci

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Section: Content Focusmentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of framing on transfer: initial evidence from a tutoring experiment

2010

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“…Basic biomedical content is handled only in lectures where the purpose is to introduce the topic of the present course and recapitulate the central matters, for instance, the anatomy and physiology of the cardiovascular system. The risk is that if biomedical content is taught only in a few lectures, which are voluntary to participate in, certain students may pass the basic courses whilst having serious difficulties in understanding the central concepts (see Michael et al 1999;Michael et al 2002;Mikkilä-Erdmann et al submitted). In the demonstrations and exercises, the focus is on rehearsing practical skills, such as reading ECGs or getting to 1 Biomedical knowledge is the basic science concerning the functioning of the human body, such as human anatomy and physiology.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A follow-up study of medical students’ biomedical understanding and clinical reasoning concerning the cardiovascular system

Ahopelto

Mikkilä-Erdmann

Olkinuora

et al. 2011

Adv in Health Sci Educ

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Novice medical students usually hold initial conceptions concerning medical domains, such as the cardiovascular system, which may contradict scientific explanations and thus hinder learning. The purpose of this study was to investigate which kinds of biomedical representations medical students constructed of the central cardiovascular system in their first and second years of study, and how the quality of these representations was related to the students' success in clinical reasoning. Data for 119 medical students were collected in three phases: in the first year of study before and after a cardiovascular course and a follow-up in the second year of study. Biomedical and clinical assignments were utilised. The study revealed that students had a substantial number of different misconceptions, and they decreased only slightly over the period of instruction. Those students who had misconceptions concerning biomedical knowledge also performed poorly in clinical reasoning. Furthermore, those students whose clinical reasoning was excellent had improved their biomedical knowledge between the first and second year remarkably more than students with poorer clinical reasoning. Hence, biomedical understanding seems to act as a mediator in clinical reasoning among novice students. We suggest that domain-specific pedagogical training, which would help medical educators become aware of students' typical misconceptions concerning biomedical knowledge and the role of this knowledge in clinical reasoning, should be carried out to improve medical education.

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“…12 While biochemistry and anatomy seem to suffer from severe long-term knowledge decay, physiology has proven to be particularly hard to understand from the very start. 13,14,15,16 Misconceptions are common, even in central aspects of body regulation such as cardiac function, 15 respiratory function 14 and blood-pressure regulation. 16 This has been attributed to the complex nature of the discipline, including causal reasoning, mathematics and far-reaching integration.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term understanding of basic science knowledge in senior medical students

et al. 2013

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Objectives: The purpose of this study is to explore the relation between basic science knowledge and the ability to understand and make use of basic science in explaining a clinical scenario in the final year of medical school. Methods: A sample of senior medical students was reassessed using the same test they had taken 3 years earlier. This was followed by an in-depth interview on one of the topics taken from the test. Their respective level of knowledge was compared with their performance in the interview. The test was analysed according to the revised Bloom's Taxonomy, and the interviews carried out according to the phenomenographic approach.Results: Performance was around 60% (n=19) of the original performance, with no significant correlation between original test and re-test (r = 0.258, p = 0.29) and large interpersonal variation. A high performance in the original test did not predict a good performance; rather, the reverse seemed probable. None of the students who achieved high grades in the original test displayed a stable long term understanding that was measured in the interview. The test comprised questions of a generally low taxonomical level, but could not explain the mismatch between test-result and level of understanding. Conclusions:Findings suggest substantial loss of basic science knowledge during medical training. Attention should be directed to designing examinations that are purposeful, when it comes to what kind of knowledge is desirable in medical graduates as well as how that knowledge should be acquired. Further larger-scale research is needed to corroborate these findings.

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Undergraduates’ understanding of cardiovascular phenomena

Cited by 72 publications

References 7 publications

The influence of framing on transfer: initial evidence from a tutoring experiment

The influence of framing on transfer: initial evidence from a tutoring experiment

A follow-up study of medical students’ biomedical understanding and clinical reasoning concerning the cardiovascular system

Long-term understanding of basic science knowledge in senior medical students

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