Welcome to the Gardner Lab

Research

Scientific inquiry and experimental design in undergraduate biology

Current Project:

Exploring students' and instructors' conceptions of scientific hypotheses and predictions. Scientific hypotheses and predictions are foundational concepts in scientific inquiry and generation of new knowledge. However there is evidence that undergraduate students of biology have difficulties grasping the concept and application of a hypothesis. One potential reason for this is the varied definitions of these concepts and of the process of inquiry that exist amongst biology educators and education resources. The near term goal of this project is to characterize the variation in conceptions of hypotheses and predictions among biology educators and scientists and compare these to student conceptions. The expected long term impact of this work is to generate better teaching resources for developing competency in scientific inquiry among undergraduate biology students.

People:

Relevant Publication:

Pelaez, N., Anderson, T. R., Gardner, S. M., Yin, Y., Abraham, J. K., Barlett, E. L., ... Stevens, M. T. (2018). A Community-Building Framework for Collaborative Research Coordination across the Education and Biology Research Disciplines. CBE - Life Sciences Education, 17(2), 1-10. doi:10.1187/cbe.17-04-0060