Analysis of Learning in a Novel Biochemistry Lab CURE Using Self-Reported Student Mastery Assessments

The understanding of a student's proficiency in pedagogical contexts can be difficult to measure, especially in an experiential setting such as independent research or research based course.The usual laboratory experience consists of demos, cookbook style experiments, reports analyzing data obtained. The Biochemistry Authentic Scientific Inquiry Laboratory (BASIL) curriculum is a Course Based Undergraduate Research (CURE) providing students with a more interactive way to understand biochemical concepts. The CURE curriculum allows the students to engage in the material and actively conduct research while in the environment and constraints of a course. They utilize lab techniques, computational programs, and online databases to elucidate the unknown function of an enzyme. In order to better understand student learning in this course, Anticipated Learning Outcomes (ALO) were developed by Irby et al 2020. These 7 expected outcomes, outline faculty expectations of' expertise and mastery of biochemical concepts students should gain as a result of the lab. To assess this potential gain a survey known as the Participant Perception Indicator (PPI), was completed by each student before and again after completion of the class. Students indicate their level of knowledge, experience, and confidence about each topic. These questions are grouped into three parts: ALO statements, computational techniques and biochemical techniques. knowledge, experience and confidence the student has is measured using a Likert scale ranging from None, score =0, to a great deal score =5. The data presented here spans 5 semesters, from Fall 2020 to Fall 2022. with approximately 60 students completing both the pre and post surveys each semester. Pairwise analysis was performed to show whether the score increased, decreased or stayed the same for each question. Resulting scores were analyzed using a sign test with Bonferroni correction. Statistically significant increases were seen for each ALO and technique presented during the semester. We also analyzed the change in the frequency of numerical responses between the pre and post semester responses. These frequency data also show a strong positive increase between the pre and post semester responses. Techniques included in the survey but not taught as part of the curriculum produced much smaller gains in learning further supporting that the student learning gains were tied to the biochemistry course.This project represents the first quantitative data supporting the hypothesis that the BASIL CURE is indeed effective in fostering student learning. We provide evidence that this tool effectively provides students more access to opportunities for research and thereby develop methods to measure intellectual growth in the classroom. Furthermore, we show CURE based courses do support student gains in mastery of both anticipated learning outcomes as well as laboratory techniques. Further studies like this will be able to serve as a basis for the decisions by faculty to more broadly adopt CUREs into their curriculum. CUREs have been identified as an essential way to provide more accessibility to research experiences especially traditionally under-represented minorities in STEM.