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A Critical Analysis of Assessment Quality in Genomics and Bioinformatics Education Research

The growing importance of genomics and bioinformatics methods and paradigms in biology has been accompanied by an explosion of new curricula and pedagogies. An important question to ask about these educational innovations is whether they are having a meaningful impact on students’ knowledge, attitud...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Campbell, Chad E., Nehm, Ross H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Society for Cell Biology 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3763019/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24006400
http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.12-06-0073
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author Campbell, Chad E.
Nehm, Ross H.
author_facet Campbell, Chad E.
Nehm, Ross H.
author_sort Campbell, Chad E.
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description The growing importance of genomics and bioinformatics methods and paradigms in biology has been accompanied by an explosion of new curricula and pedagogies. An important question to ask about these educational innovations is whether they are having a meaningful impact on students’ knowledge, attitudes, or skills. Although assessments are necessary tools for answering this question, their outputs are dependent on their quality. Our study 1) reviews the central importance of reliability and construct validity evidence in the development and evaluation of science assessments and 2) examines the extent to which published assessments in genomics and bioinformatics education (GBE) have been developed using such evidence. We identified 95 GBE articles (out of 226) that contained claims of knowledge increases, affective changes, or skill acquisition. We found that 1) the purpose of most of these studies was to assess summative learning gains associated with curricular change at the undergraduate level, and 2) a minority (<10%) of studies provided any reliability or validity evidence, and only one study out of the 95 sampled mentioned both validity and reliability. Our findings raise concerns about the quality of evidence derived from these instruments. We end with recommendations for improving assessment quality in GBE.
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spelling pubmed-37630192013-09-09 A Critical Analysis of Assessment Quality in Genomics and Bioinformatics Education Research Campbell, Chad E. Nehm, Ross H. CBE Life Sci Educ Articles The growing importance of genomics and bioinformatics methods and paradigms in biology has been accompanied by an explosion of new curricula and pedagogies. An important question to ask about these educational innovations is whether they are having a meaningful impact on students’ knowledge, attitudes, or skills. Although assessments are necessary tools for answering this question, their outputs are dependent on their quality. Our study 1) reviews the central importance of reliability and construct validity evidence in the development and evaluation of science assessments and 2) examines the extent to which published assessments in genomics and bioinformatics education (GBE) have been developed using such evidence. We identified 95 GBE articles (out of 226) that contained claims of knowledge increases, affective changes, or skill acquisition. We found that 1) the purpose of most of these studies was to assess summative learning gains associated with curricular change at the undergraduate level, and 2) a minority (<10%) of studies provided any reliability or validity evidence, and only one study out of the 95 sampled mentioned both validity and reliability. Our findings raise concerns about the quality of evidence derived from these instruments. We end with recommendations for improving assessment quality in GBE. American Society for Cell Biology 2013 /pmc/articles/PMC3763019/ /pubmed/24006400 http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.12-06-0073 Text en © 2013 C. E. Campbell and R. H. Nehm. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2013 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0). “ASCB®” and “The American Society for Cell Biology®” are registered trademarks of The American Society of Cell Biology.
spellingShingle Articles
Campbell, Chad E.
Nehm, Ross H.
A Critical Analysis of Assessment Quality in Genomics and Bioinformatics Education Research
title A Critical Analysis of Assessment Quality in Genomics and Bioinformatics Education Research
title_full A Critical Analysis of Assessment Quality in Genomics and Bioinformatics Education Research
title_fullStr A Critical Analysis of Assessment Quality in Genomics and Bioinformatics Education Research
title_full_unstemmed A Critical Analysis of Assessment Quality in Genomics and Bioinformatics Education Research
title_short A Critical Analysis of Assessment Quality in Genomics and Bioinformatics Education Research
title_sort critical analysis of assessment quality in genomics and bioinformatics education research
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3763019/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24006400
http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.12-06-0073
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