Chatbot responses suggest that hypothetical biology questions are harder than realistic ones.

ABSTRACT: The biology education literature includes compelling assertions that unfamiliar problems are especially useful for revealing students' true understanding of biology. However, there is only limited evidence that such novel problems have different cognitive requirements than more familiar problems. Here, we sought additional evidence by using chatbots based on large language models as models of biology students. For human physiology and cell biology, we developed sets of realistic and hypothetical problems matched to the same lesson learning objectives (LLOs). Problems were considered hypothetical if (i) known biological entities (molecules and organs) were given atypical or counterfactual properties (redefinition) or (ii) fictitious biological entities were introduced (invention). Several c

SUBMITTER: Crowther GJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10720523 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature