Assessing student skills in laboratory and research experiences.

1. Assessing student skills in laboratory and research experiences. Benjamin D. Caldwell Department of Chemistry Missouri Western State University, St. Joseph, MO April 29, 2014 Experimental Biology 2014, San Diego

2. BMB Lab Skills • What are the expectations (minimum vs. hopes/dreams!) for students completing BMB courses/programs • Perform basic tasks adequately vs. designing experiments • Set learning objectives • What are the expectations for students coming into an introductory BMB course? • Pre-course survey • Determine assess strategy for achievement of objectives • Lab reports, written research/project proposals, presentations, quizzes, exams, practical exams, etc…

3. First efforts • Focused on basic BMB lab skills and methods • What skills do we want to teach in our courses? • What are our objectives for program? • How in depth can we want go? • Introductory, theory, usage, proficient, mastery

4. Lab skills • Review of matrix and discussion

6. What’s out there on lab assessment? • Experiments, procedures are available in variety of venues • BMBEd, CBE Life Sci Ed., J. Chem Ed., … • A few lab manuals available FLABB, Boyer, Farrell/Taylor …. • Course design – project based/inquiry based research • Assessment of laboratory skills???

7. Our efforts • Assessment of student progress through entire lab course • Pre-course survey – assess student comprehension/retention from earlier courses • Includes attitudinal survey + skills assessment • Midterm-assessment • Final Exam • First half of course focuses skill building • Second half – project based • Protein purification, enzyme kinetics

8. Pre-course skills survey Use the following scale, circling the appropriate statement that best matches your feeling about the following laboratory related questions. Strongly Somewhat Neutral/ Somewhat Strongly Disagree Disagree No Opinion Agree Agree 1 2 3 4 5 1. I am able to solve basic mathematic problems that require scientific notation or exponents. 1 2 3 4 5 3. I can accurately determine the correct number of significant digits in a number. 1 2 3 4 5 79. Complete the following mathematical equation, and give your answer with the proper number of significant digits. a. 4.0 x 105 b. 4.00 x 105 c. 4.00367 x 105 d. 400,367

9. Pre-Course Survey Sample Questions Attitudinal Question: I am able to solve basic mathematical problems that require scientific notation or exponents Complete the following mathematical equation, and give your answer with the proper number of significant digits Pre-test: 24%Could correctly perform calculation Mid-term: 88% Could correctly perform calculation Attitudinal Questions: I can determine the accuracy and precision of a micropipette from data. Pre-test: 6%Could correctly determine accuracy/precision Mid-term: 47% could determine accuracy/precision

11. Lab Task Questions (% Correct) Neutral/ No Opinion Somewhat Agree Somewhat Disagree Strongly Agree Strongly Disagree

13. Final Exam • Given: Formal report on purification of protein characterization • Introduction to the enzyme • Materials and Methods • Data and results • No Conclusions or Discussion

14. Exam Question 5 What type of experiment was used to detect the presence of the enzyme specifically in fractions collected from the gel filtration column? What substance and physical property were measured directly in this experiment to detect the presence of ATPase acivity? Learning Objectives: • Demonstrate understanding of enzyme assays and assay methodologies. • Demonstrate ability to compare data from different types of experimental procedures and data.

15. Exam Question 8 • Were the pipettes used in the protein assays all accurate and precise? Indicate which pipettes were accurate, precise, both or neither. Also, indicate why any pipettes were determined to not be accurate or precise. • Learning Objectives: • Demonstrate ability to perform basic statistical • calculations and comparisons. • Demonstrate understanding of the concepts of accuracy • vs. precision.

16. Exam Question 9 • What are the Km and Vmax values for the enzyme in the presence of MgATP and the analog CrATP. Which compounds binds more tightly to the enzyme, MgATP or CrATP, and explain how the data support your conclusion. • Learning Objectives: • Demonstrate understanding of enzyme kinetics and • inhibition. • Demonstrate ability to use data to perform biochemical • calculations

17. Exam Question 10 • Write a conclusion paragraph for this lab report. Be sure to comment briefly on a) the steps and procedures used to purify the enzyme, b) methods used to specifically identify fractions containing the protein, and c) compare the relative kinetics of the enzyme using MgATP or CrATP binds more tightly to the enzyme and possible mechanism of inhibition as demonstrated by the presented data. • Learning Objectives: • Demonstrate ability to synthesize concluding statements • based on a large body of work using different laboratory • methods and multiple forms of data representations. • Demonstrate the ability to communicate effectively.

18. Final Exam Results Student Performance on final exam questions. Scores represent percentage of students receiving full credit for each question. Able to identify areas still needing improvement (indicated by yellow) include: • Interpreting graphic data (Q’s 2, 6, 9) – graphical/SDS-PAGE results • Comprehension of enzyme assays and kinetics (Q’s 5, 9) • Performing biochemical calculations (Q’s 7, 9)

19. Conclusion - Course wide approach to assessing and tracking student achievement of introductory biochemistry laboratory lab skills Future work: Incorporate attitudinal component into final exam study, possibly include exit interviews Acknowledgments Dr. Melissa Daggett, MWSU Biology Department Merrill Schaeffer, MWSU/Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica CHE 370 Students, MWSU