Misconceptions and incomplete knowledge interfere with a student's ability to construct a conceptual hierarchy leading to deep learning. This project is developing a series of image-based assessments, rooted in student mental models, to diagnose misconceptions in biology. The goal of this work is to identify common misconceptions or incomplete knowledge within the hierarchy of biological diversity with the objective of developing materials to address and enhance student knowledge in biology. The project, based on models of inferential reasoning and decision-making, consists of three steps. In step 1, students generate and annotate drawings representing their understanding (i.e. mental model) of a specific concept (e.g. cell structure, insect morphology). Student-generated images are analyzed for the presence or absence of essential elements and for the presence of incorrect information. Preliminary results reveal that student drawings contain previously unrecognized misconceptions based on incorrect information or unrecognized misconceptions based on incomplete information. The use of images allows for the identification of misconceptions held by a diverse group of students, independent of English language skill. Step 2 of the project requires students to categorize a series of images specific to a concept. The images include common, unfamiliar, and textbook examples of the concept. Some images are manipulated to add, remove or displace essential features. Student performance on this task is providing insight to the cues used in making inferences. The final step of the project involves the integration of the previous results to arrive at a common set of misconceptions for use in the construction of tutorial assessment that can be implemented as a diagnostic and educational tool in lower division biology courses. The unique quality of the tutorial assessment is that, in addition to providing diagnostic information to instructors, it functions to make students aware of their own misconceptions independent of their language proficiency; an important feature for the retention of under-represented groups in STEM. Intellectual Merit: The proposed project is examining student misconceptions as the product of errors in inferential reasoning with the goal of identifying the missing or erroneous cues that underlie common misconceptions in biology. The use of images to accomplish this goal provides a novel approach to the problem. Broader Impact: The development of an image-based assessment for the identification of common misconceptions in biology can impact the quality of biology instruction, especially for under-represented and non-native English speaking students, at a national level. The format of this assessment could be used as a model for similar studies in other sub-disciplines in biology or in other STEM disciplines.
