Identifying Troublesome Jargon in Biology: Discrepancies between Student Performance and Perceived Understanding.

ABSTRACT: The excessive "jargon" load in biology may be a hurdle for developing conceptual understanding as well as achieving core competencies such as scientific literacy and communication. Little work has been done to characterize student understanding of biology--specific jargon. To address this issue, we aimed to determine the types of biology jargon terms that students struggle with most, the alignment between students' perceived understanding and performance defining the terms, and common errors in student-provided definitions. Students in two biology classes were asked to report their understanding of, and provide definitions for, course-specific vocabulary terms: 1276 student responses to 72 terms were analyzed. Generally, students showed an overestimation of their own understanding. The lea

SUBMITTER: Zukswert JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6757220 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature