Project Summary

Project Goals

Our project goal was to build on previous research, both with our students and across higher education in general, in the areas of student learning, misconceptions and threshold concepts to:

• identify threshold concepts in biology and determine how they fit into current definitions
• discuss these concepts and how they are taught with practising biologists
• test student understanding of these concepts
• design interventions to improve understanding of threshold concepts
• analyse the effect of these interventions
• create biology teaching guidelines using project results
• develop a generic model for teaching threshold concepts

Project Approach

During Phase 1 of this project we identified potential threshold concepts in biology in collaboration with our biology reference group and through surveys and interviews of students and teachers.

During Phase 2 we designed and developed intervention resources, which were used as supplementary teaching materials in relevant undergraduate courses at the three participating universities.

During Phase 3 we analysed the effects of the interventions to determine if additional instruction in the target concept lead to an increased understanding in both the threshold and related concepts.

During Phase 4 we used our project results to create a generic model for teaching threshold concepts.