Stivven's List: SQUiB Project

1) Area of focus: a problem that you can turn into a question . . .

The problem:

students in the applied health sciences are not competent in application of quantitative approaches to biological situations

The question:

what cognitive strategies can an instructor use to enable students to achieve competence and confidence in quantitative biochemistry?

2) Reconnaissance: your own understanding of the problem/AoF

Based on my experience at the bench with year one students, as well as chats with other staff members, the most common errors encountered when correcting lab write ups and assessments, the key issue(s) seem to be a lack of confidence in basic mathematical transformations in the applied setting and lack of awareness of shortcuts (as applied by experienced practitioners, i.heuristics). The perception is that the laboratory sessions are beyond the capacity of students, which in my opinion stems from the difficulty in carrying out the data analysis parts rather than the actual experimental procedures which the students generally seem to be able to work through. Based on experience with students from other years and with postgraduates, these skills seem to evolve over time in a relatively unstructured fashion as the students gain more experience in the lab and exposure to practitioners (e.g. in placement). So there seem to be two aspects here: the know-how and the confidence to use it. My postgraduate experience would suggest that these emerge best in a master-apprentice model where iterative and one-on-one one correction can happen, and where training is very detailed and close to the expert practitioner.