Stevens-Research Problem

1. Stevens-Research Problem • Students have misconceptions about key concepts in microbiology, but we don’t understand what those are. • By ascertaining the misconceptions, especially those related to instruction, appropriate classroom intervention strategies may be developed.

2. Stevens-Research Question • Research Question: What are the key misconceptions that students have about [antibiotic resistance*]. *substitute other topics/questions later • Research Context: Engage microbiology faculty in understanding student learning to improve individual classes and the curriculum as a whole. • My question is interesting because: There is little literature available to the microbiology community about student misconceptions.

3. Stevens-Research Methodology • 1. Use the University of Maryland 17 question 2-tiered concept inventory to assess student understanding of key concepts before and after several microbiology courses in the curriculum (lower level to higher level). • 2. Develop codebooks to categorize/code student misconceptions for four questions* from the pre-survey of General Microbiology (use a “rapid” non-quantitative process perhaps with subset of students). *add additional questions later • 3. Use codebooks for each question to quantitate data from the total presurvey and postsurveydata; further refine codebook during process.

4. Stevens-Alignment of Research Question and Methodology Student explanation: Theme of misconception (up to two/student) Explanation correct? (1, 2, 0) Answer correct? (1, 2, 0) Insure that the misconceptions topics are aligned with the key concepts/learning objectives of the curriculum tested in the concptinventory.