Crafting a Biology Course for Nonmajors: Personas Help Delineate Faculty Decision Making.

IF 4.1 2区教育学 Q1 EDUCATION, SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES

Cbe-Life Sciences Education Pub Date : 2025-09-01 DOI:10.1187/cbe.24-06-0173

Shweta Lahiri, Austin Heil, Alex Daniels, Cara Gormally, Peggy Brickman

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Abstract

Science courses are required for nonmajor students as part of general education with the goal of students connecting scientific knowledge to their own lives using science to make decisions. Often, however, these science courses emphasize basic concepts and terms without making it relevant to students' lives. Thus, these courses may not be successful in promoting decision making related to science and society. In this study, we interviewed 35 faculty teaching nonmajors biology to understand their rationale in making course decisions. Through interviews, we learned what factors influence faculty decision-making processes in structuring nonmajors' biology courses, as well as if and how they prioritize teaching about socioscientific issues (SSIs) and scientific competencies. Using cluster analysis, we developed fictional faculty teaching personas based on key themes and characteristics of faculty who prioritize teaching about SSIs versus those who focus on content coverage. These teaching personas could prove useful for professional development planning when seeking to improve student learning.

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为非专业学生制作生物学课程：人物角色帮助描述教师决策。

作为通识教育的一部分，非专业学生必须开设科学课程，目的是让学生将科学知识与自己的生活联系起来，用科学来做决定。然而，这些科学课程往往强调基本概念和术语，而不使其与学生的生活相关。因此，这些课程可能无法成功地促进与科学和社会有关的决策。在这项研究中，我们采访了35位教授非专业生物学的教师，以了解他们做出课程决策的基本原理。通过访谈，我们了解了哪些因素影响了教师在构建非专业生物学课程时的决策过程，以及他们是否以及如何优先考虑社会科学问题（ssi）和科学能力的教学。使用聚类分析，我们根据教师的关键主题和特征开发了虚构的教师教学角色，这些教师优先考虑ssi教学，而不是那些专注于内容覆盖的教师。在寻求提高学生学习时，这些教学角色可以证明对专业发展计划是有用的。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Cbe-Life Sciences Education EDUCATION, SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES-

CiteScore

6.50

自引率

13.50%

发文量

100

审稿时长

>12 weeks

期刊介绍： CBE—Life Sciences Education (LSE), a free, online quarterly journal, is published by the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). The journal was launched in spring 2002 as Cell Biology Education—A Journal of Life Science Education. The ASCB changed the name of the journal in spring 2006 to better reflect the breadth of its readership and the scope of its submissions. LSE publishes peer-reviewed articles on life science education at the K–12, undergraduate, and graduate levels. The ASCB believes that learning in biology encompasses diverse fields, including math, chemistry, physics, engineering, computer science, and the interdisciplinary intersections of biology with these fields. Within biology, LSE focuses on how students are introduced to the study of life sciences, as well as approaches in cell biology, developmental biology, neuroscience, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, and proteomics.