Bridging the Gap

Bridging the Educational Research-Teaching Practice Gap*

THE IMPORTANCE OF BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN SCIENCE EDUCATION RESEARCH AND ITSAPPLICATION IN BIOCHEMISTRY TEACHING AND LEARNING: BARRIERS AND STRATEGIES

Received for publication, September 12, 2007

Trevor R. Anderson‡

From the Science Education Research Group (SERG), School of Biochemistry, Genetics, Microbiology and PlantPathology, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

There is a large body of educational research results available in the science education literature thatcould be usefully applied for the improvement of teaching practice in biochemistry and molecular biol-ogy. Unfortunately, for a great variety of reasons, such applications are relatively limited in our discipline.In this first paper in the series, ‘‘Bridging the Gap’’, I describe some of the barriers that are hamperingthe bridging of this gap and suggest some possible strategies that colleagues might wish to try in orderto promote the wider use of this excellent educational resource.

Keywords: Teaching, learning, educational research, curriculum change, biochemistry.

Over the past 50 or more years, science educators havedone extensive research into a wide range of issues of im-portance to the teaching and learning of science. This hasled to the accumulation of a large body of knowledge thathas been published in various science education journals,books, databases, and theses. This excellent resourceoffers biochemistry and molecular biology lecturers aunique opportunity to improve their teaching and learningpractice and course curricula and put their practice onto asound, and rigorously researched theoretical base [1].Unfortunately though, with the exception of physics [2], theapplication of this knowledge to the teaching of chemistry[3, 4] and biology [5] has been relatively limited [6, 7], whiledisciplines such as biochemistry and molecular biologyhave been even more neglected [8]. This is despite theextensive efforts of colleagues across various disciplines topromote such applications of knowledge through a widerange of initiatives and publications (see below). The ques-tion is what types of barriers are preventing more scientists,especially biochemists, from applying the outcomes of sci-ence education research to the improvement of their teach-ing practice? Also, what strategies could be utilized to helpbridge this research-practice gap in biochemistry and mo-lecular biology education (see Fig. 1) and what can welearn from existing innovations and resources that havebeen developed by various proactive colleagues with thesame goals in mind?

BARRIERS TO BRIDGING THE RESEARCH-PRACTICE GAP

One major problem that can discourage the applicationof science education research to teaching practice is thecomplexity (see Fig. 1) of the research outcomes, an under-standing of which often requires knowledge of educationalprinciples, concepts, and language (jargon) that is alien tothe average lecturer [9, 10]. Compounding this problem isthe inadequate dissemination of results [4, 11] and the pub-lication thereof in books and journals, which are not readilyaccessible to scientists [9, 12]. In addition, many scientistslack the background (Fig. 1) to integrate and implementsuch research ideas into their teaching practice. This prob-lem is often compounded by the failure of educationalresearchers to clearly emphasize the implications of theirresearch findings for teaching [6, 13]. Also, the expectations(Fig. 1) of instructors and educational researchers maydiffer, with instructors expecting the outcomes of educa-

tional research to give them clear solutions to their teach-ing problems and educational researchers expecting theinstructors, themselves, to know how to apply the educa-tional research results to their practice [3]. Another problemof particular relevance at tertiary level is the perceptionof many scientists that educational research lacks validity(Fig. 1) and rigor [10]. As in all academic fields, you can en-counter both good and bad research but certainly compe-tent science education researchers, just like their sciencecounterparts, would vigorously defend the rigor, reliability,and validity of their research. Unfortunately, though, thisperception about the value of educational research hasled the majority of scientists to discount it as a scholarlyactivity that is both useful and worthy of promotion andreward within science departments, particularly if done andfinanced at the expense of experimental biochemistry

*The National Research Foundation (NRF) is acknowledgedfor the financial support (GUN Number 2053218) of this work.

‡ To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel.: þ27-33-260-5464; Fax: þ27-33-260-6127. E-mail: Anderson@ukzn.ac.za.

This paper is available on line at http://www.bambed.org DOI 10.1002/bambed.20136465

Q 2007 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY EDUCATION

Vol. 35, No. 6, pp. 465–470, 2007

research. This then constitutes another potential barrier tosome colleagues engaging in ‘‘bridging the gap’’ activitiesto improve their teaching, if their institutions do not supportthem in their endeavors.1

Thus, all the abovementioned problems, together withthe usual time constraints that go with most academicpositions [3], can lead to a lack of motivation and resist-ance (Fig. 1) of educators to being open to even tryingany new ideas that might be useful for improving theirpractice. This resistance to change [14] can also stemfrom a range of other factors such as historical habit (alecturer has always taught that way and does not wantto change); psychological barriers such as fear of changeand failure in new endeavors; and resistance to changingones teaching philosophy [10], from a traditional to amore alternative mode of practice. This problem can befurther compounded by a resistance of some students tochanges in teaching, learning, and assessment styleswith which they are not accustomed. In this regard,Dembo and Seli [15] found that student resistance tochange could be ascribed to at least four factors;namely, ‘‘students believe they can’t change, they don’twant to change, they don’t know what to change, orthey don’t know how to change.’’ Thus clearly pressuringstudents to adapt to more research-based teaching andlearning approaches can be the source of great unhappi-ness and insecurity, particularly if such approaches arenot phased in gradually so that the students becomeprogressively more competent and confident with anynew innovation.

Besides, the above people-related barriers, there areissues that pertain to the nature of the educationalresearch and its applicability (Fig. 1) to biochemistry. Forinstance, one problem is that the majority of the researchpublished to date on student understanding and alterna-tive conceptions [16, 17], has focused on the disciplinesof physics, chemistry, and biology, rather than in theareas of biochemistry and molecular biology. Thus, thereis an urgent need for more biochemistry-specific educa-tional research in this area, even though many of theprinciples and concepts of physics, chemistry, and biol-ogy are also relevant to biochemistry and molecular biol-ogy. A second problem is the fact that the majority ofresearch into student understanding has focused on theidentification of conceptual and reasoning difficulties,rather than on the design of teaching approaches to cor-rect the difficulties [3, 18, 19]. Research has shown thatmost student misconceptions are not corrected by sim-ply informing students of their difficulties, but by specifi-cally designed remediation strategies. Thus, there is adearth of research knowledge in certain areas of educa-tion, but the fact remains that there is an enormousamount we can learn from this literature if it is mademore accessible to biochemistry lecturers.

Unlike disciplines such as physics, biochemistry doesnot have a formally agreed-upon concept inventory (Fig.1) of the most important or key concepts that our stu-dents need to master to become competent biochemists.The identification of the core biochemical concepts hasbecome of particular importance to modern biochemistryteaching and learning, given the exponential growth ofknowledge in our discipline, which has swamped text-books with more concepts than our students, can copewith and, quite frankly, need to learn about. Clearly,therefore, such an inventory needs to be urgently articu-lated and negotiated by a consensus of leading bio-chemists before colleagues invest too great an effort intothe application of ideas from science education researchto their teaching practice. Toward this end, various indi-vidual efforts aimed at developing an inventory for bio-chemistry have been initiated (e.g., [20]), but what isrequired is a more concerted and well-coordinated effortinvolving experts from across the biochemistry and mo-lecular biology community. In this regard, the IUBMBEducational Sub-Committee, under the chairmanship ofSusan Hamilton, has recently launched a more concertedeffort to develop a concept inventory for the entire mo-lecular life sciences [21], an initiative that is also beingpiloted in Australia as a Carrick-funded project. Thiswhole initiative will be considerably facilitated by variousother related concept inventories that have been devel-oped, especially the biological concept inventory (BCI)project [22, 23] and the conceptual inventory of naturalselection (CINS) [24]. As these concept inventories de-velop, and we obtain greater clarification of key conceptsin our field, colleagues will be in a better position toproperly focus their bridging-the-gap activities.

STRATEGIES THAT MIGHT BRIDGETHE RESEARCH-PRACTICE GAP

Whatever the reasons for this gap between scienceeducation research and science teaching, the criticalquestion for biochemists is, what strategies (see Fig. 1)can we use to alleviate this problem so that more lec-turers apply the results of science education research to

FIG. 1. Summary of the barriers preventing (arrows symbol-izing resistance), and the strategies promoting (arrows sym-bolizing narrowing), the bridging (closing) of the gap (shownby two vertical lines) between science education researchknowledge and its application in teaching practice.

1 The abbreviations used are: BCI, biological concept inven-tory; CINS, conceptual inventory of natural selection; SoTL,Scholarship of Teaching and Learning; SFES, science facultywith education specialties; NAS, National Academy of Sciences;NRF, National Research Foundation; SALG, student assessmentof learning gains; BEN, Biological Sciences Education Network;CARD, conceptual and reasoning difficulties.

466 BAMBED, Vol. 35, No. 6, pp. 465–470, 2007

their teaching programs? The importance of this goal hasbeen stressed by various editorials in science educationjournals [13, 25, 26] that have emphasized the need forfuture research to address the issue of how best toimplement educational theory in teaching practice. Inaddition, various concerned scientists, science educa-tors, and national bodies have shown great initiative indeveloping a wide range of innovations and resourcesaimed at overcoming the barriers and promoting thebridging of the educational research-teaching practicegap. One such initiative is the Scholarship of Teachingand Learning (SoTL) movement founded in 2004 [27].SoTL is one of the most rapidly growing movements in ter-tiary education, serving those lecturers and students whobelieve that scientists need to show scholarship in boththeir scientific research and their teaching practice. That is,that teaching should be informed by rigorous research, notjust intuition, experience, and knowledge of the subjectmatter. Thus, SoTL promotes scholarly inquiry into studentlearning and the public sharing of research outcomes forthe advancement of teaching practice. The SoTL move-ment supports many of the strategies discussed belowand has been built on various, successful long-term initia-tives such as K-12 action research, the reflective practicemovement, traditional educational research, and facultydevelopment efforts to enhance teaching and learning.

One strategy strongly advocated by the SoTL move-ment and various other workers (e.g., [7]), and also amajor goal of this column, is to translate research (Fig. 1)findings into practical lessons and classroom activities.This approach was also supported by Viglietta [28] whosuggested getting more science education researchersto point out the implications of their research for educa-tional practice and to translate their work for discipline-based education journals. Viglietta [28] also proposed theconverse strategy, namely to encourage more lecturersto record and publish their teaching experiences (Fig. 1)in journals and to coauthor articles with science educa-tion researchers. Over the past decade, the above-men-tioned two strategies have been given special attentionby both science educators and science discipline expertswho have translated and communicated their teachingexperiences and research findings in an ever-growingnumber of biology- and chemistry education journals andwebsite resources (see later) of use to biochemists.Examples of such journals include University ChemistryEducation, Microbiology Education, Journal of ChemicalEducation, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Educa-tion, Journal of Medical Education, the Education Forumin Science, BioScience, and CBE-Life Sciences Educa-tion. Thus clearly the educational literature, which couldbe very useful to biochemists and molecular biologistsfor enhancing their teaching practice, is growing quiterapidly, and this research is beginning to appear in jour-nals routinely read by practicing scientists—the neednow is to motivate more colleagues to capitalize on thisexcellent resource.

The educational experiences of lecturers are not onlyuseful to other lecturers but crucial for informing and fo-cusing the direction of future science education researchso that it remains useful and relevant to our teaching func-

tion. As an extension of the idea of publishing scholarlyarticles concerning their teaching experiences, biochem-ists could consider doing action research (Fig. 1) [29]. Thisinvolves a cyclical process of implementing a curriculumintervention, collecting, and processing quantitative andqualitative student data, reflecting on the success of theintervention and, if necessary, modifying the interventionand reimplementing it until satisfied with the changes.Details on how to design action research studies and col-lect and process appropriate research data will be givenin future articles of this bridging-the-gap series.

To enhance the above-mentioned strategies, variousworkers including Kempa [6] and Tanner [30] have pro-posed that science educational researchers and practi-tioners should work together in a ‘‘purposeful partner-ship’’ to establish the conditions necessary for researchto effectively impact on educational practice. This wasalso supported by Viglietta [28] who recognized the needfor researchers and practitioners to be brought closer to-gether in science education. One way to bring research-ers and practitioners together and help bridge theresearch-practice gap is to deploy the services of a sci-ence education consultant (Fig. 1), preferably with knowl-edge of biochemistry, who could interact with individualbiochemistry faculty and advise them on educational de-velopment matters. The consultant could also be used tofacilitate curriculum teamwork (Fig. 1) involving severalbiochemistry colleagues working in a group to developspecific courses or teaching and learning activities. Aneven better arrangement has been investigated by Bushet al. [31] who suggest that science departments speci-fically hire science faculty with education specialties(SFES) that, preferably, include experience in educationalresearch. In an in-depth study, involving an experienced,collaborative team of tenure-track faculty, themselves allwith expertise in both science and science education,these authors thoroughly investigated the feasibility,practicality, and implications of creating such a positionin science departments. Their article addresses severalcrucial questions and offers guidelines of great relevanceto the hiring of such faculty and is recommended readingfor colleagues in biochemistry considering such a step.

The SFES issue has also been thoroughly debated atvarious workshops and colloquia. These include theNational Academy of Sciences (NAS) workshop [32] onDiscipline-based Science Education and the CaliforniaState University (CSU) Colloquium on Science Education[33]. The former meeting brought together administratorswho have pioneered the hiring of SFESs with faculty whohad been hired in such positions. The latter was a sys-tem-wide colloquium involving some 23 campuses, which,inter alia, explored how to better engage the various sci-entific disciplines in science education reform. A majorconclusion was that the integration of SFESs into sciencedepartments could play a key role in addressing this goal,but that the approach required further investigation anddevelopment.

The abovementioned ideas of developing partnershipsand employing SFESs to help bridge the gap betweeneducational research and science teaching practice mayseem rather idealistic and impractical to many col-

467

leagues, especially those in traditional biochemistrydepartments that would not support such ventures,let alone the establishment of a dedicated tenured posi-tion for a biochemistry educator. However, the fact of thematter is that there are an ever-increasing number of sci-ence departments worldwide, particularly in the disci-plines of physics, chemistry, biology, and geosciences[31], which either work in close collaboration with sci-ence education departments and consultants or employscientists, whose research direction is education. In thisregard, I have received increasing numbers of reportsover the years of considerable respect for and tenureopportunities extended to such colleagues. From the bio-chemistry point of view, I know of various tenured bio-chemists (including the author), who are active biochem-istry education researchers and who are well supportedand appreciated by their colleagues and institutions.Indeed, in South Africa, our main science funding body,the National Research Foundation (NRF), also funds sci-ence education research. In all cases, science depart-ments are increasingly realizing that consulting with sci-ence educators can significantly benefit undergraduateeducation and that this can, in turn, significantly raise thecompetence of our postgraduate students and thereforethe quality of the biochemical research done by them.Thus, in view of the earlier arguments, and the fact thatbiochemistry education is now one of the establishedthemes at most IUBMB, FEBS, and ASBMB conferences,the time has perhaps come to encourage more depart-ments, institutions, and funding bodies to promote thisarea of expertise as one of the research directions inmodern biochemistry departments and to reconsiderstandards for tenurable scholarship to include in-housebiochemistry education experts. Clearly, this will not hap-pen overnight, but by leading by example, the number ofsupporters for this venture will keep growing. As statedby Boyer [34], as long ago as 1990, and reinforced on anumber of occasions by other authors (e.g., [35]), ‘‘. . . themost important obligation now confronting the nation’scolleges and universities is to break out of the tired oldteaching versus research debate and define, in more crea-tive ways, what it means to be a scholar. It is time to rec-ognize the full range of faculty talent and the great diver-sity of functions higher education must perform.’’ Towardthis end, one of the goals of this column will be to try andinfluence more institutions and colleagues to change theirattitudes to this rather neglected area of our discipline.

One highly innovative approach developed by Seymouret al. [36] involves an on-line method of getting studentsto make realistic appraisals of their learning gains during acourse, instead of the traditional quality evaluations thatinvolve asking students what they ‘‘value,’’ ‘‘like,’’ or‘‘dislike’’ about the course and their lecturer. Theapproach, termed the Student Assessment of LearningGains (SALG) Instrument was shown [36] to give clearindications about what students had gained in terms ofunderstanding, skills, and approach to learning and to thesubject matter, so that the instructor can make informeddecisions about any improvements that will be necessary.This instrument offers science faculty the opportunity toevaluate their own practice and to identify for themselves

which elements of their course support student learningand which require improvement if specific learning needsare to be met. Thus, this instrument constitutes a passivestrategy for stimulating bridging-of-the gap activities, asfaculty members will often be stimulated to enquire as towhat educational knowledge could be applied to theirpractice to render the required improvements.

Another ‘‘bridging-the-gap’’ strategy is to promote thedissemination of knowledge (Fig. 1) to lecturers via thewide range of literature resources published on scienceeducation. However, as already enlarged upon above, var-ious barriers stand in the way of biochemists readily avail-ing themselves of such opportunities. The aim of this col-umn will be to try and overcome these barriers by meansof clear, concise, and informative articles that presentideas in a format that can be easily understood and imple-mented. The electronic media, especially the internet,offers extensive educational materials to help biochemistsdevelop their teaching practice (e.g., this issue Parslowwebsite column). For example, the Biological SciencesEducation Network (BEN) in the National Science DigitalLibrary [37] offers colleagues about 7,000 reviewedresources covering 77 biological sciences topics. It alsoaddresses the manner in which science faculty accessthe documented research information, encouraging col-leagues to develop similar strategies. Other resourcesoffer different information for lecturers. For example, theconceptual and reasoning difficulties (CARD) [17] devel-oped by the author, documents alternative conceptions(currently mainly in chemistry), sources of the difficultieslisted and teaching strategies that science educationresearchers have shown are successful in remediatingthe difficulties. The objectives of this resource are to pro-mote the dissemination of science education researchknowledge to chemistry and biochemistry lecturers andto promote biochemistry education research, particularlyon those topics and issues in which there is a dearth ofknowledge and where biochemists need to do their ownspecific research. All the information on CARD is open tocritique, correction, and addition, by means of a ‘‘sub-mission’’ facility so that researchers can submit detailsof their published research findings, while lecturers cansubmit information from their teaching experience,thereby promoting debate between science educatorsand lecturers. To also facilitate this ‘‘bridging the gap’’process, CARD is populated with a searchable databaseof about 8,000 references and has a glossary of terms tohelp lecturers better understand the educational jargon.

Finally, another way of exposing biochemistry col-leagues to the outcomes of science education researchis to encourage them to interact with science educatorsin workshops, symposia, and conferences (Fig. 1). Atsuch meetings, they might meet scientists who are alsoknowledgeable in science education and who will beable to advise them on ‘‘bridging the gap’’ strategies. Inthis regard, there is a positive move among science dis-ciplines, including biochemistry societies, to include edu-cational sessions as part of the main scientific programat international conferences, rather than as preconfer-ence meetings that tend to be attended by small num-bers of already-converted colleagues.

468 BAMBED, Vol. 35, No. 6, pp. 465–470, 2007

GOALS AND FOCUS OF THE COLUMN

The above discussion has outlined a far-from-exhaus-tive list of strategies that could be deployed to help over-come the above-mentioned barriers and encourage bio-chemistry colleagues to apply more educational knowl-edge in their teaching practice. Toward this end, thespecific goals of this column will be:

• To bring to the readership important research resultsfrom the educational literature that we believe couldbe usefully applied in biochemistry teaching, learn-ing, and course curricula;

• To access and translate complex educational litera-ture and present it in this column, in an intelligibleand user-friendly format in which only the importanteducational jargon is used and then well explained;

• To suggest ways in which colleagues might wish totry and apply the ideas in their own biochemistryteaching and curriculum development processes;and

• To promote cooperative ventures between researchscientists and educational researchers to improveunderstanding and practice in biochemical educa-tion.

To address these goals, the author, in some cases, to-gether with selected world experts from science educa-tion, cognitive psychology, and our own biochemistrycommunity, will provide a series of concise and well-referenced articles that will focus on a wide range of keyeducational findings, theories, and principles, which webelieve will be of great use to biochemistry instructors.Typical topics will include not only the latest innovationsin teaching, learning, and assessment, but also morespecialized topics, such as visual or molecular literacy. Inthis regard, we will, for instance, present what the litera-ture says about how one can improve the design anduse of models such as diagrams, computer images, andanimations to enhance the conceptual knowledge andvisualization skills of our students [38]. Another exampleof the many topics that we intend bringing to the reader-ship is the issue of what constitutes sound (andunsound) educational research and how a basic educa-tional research study can be performed. In this regard, aseries of articles will aim at informing colleagues of thelatest qualitative and quantitative methods that they canconveniently use to rigorously evaluate the educationalbenefits of their teaching innovations, such as newteaching and learning approaches, web-based resources,and molecular models. This should be of particular bene-fit to the ever-increasing number of colleagues submittingarticles to BAMBEd, and other discipline-based educa-tional journals in which they wish to claim some sort ofimprovement in the understanding of their students as aresult of a particular teaching intervention.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, we are well aware of the dangers ofreinventing the wheel by simply writing similar articles tothose, which are already available in the science educa-tion, physics education, and other literature. Extensive

science education literature, in some form or another, al-ready exists that covers most of the educational topicsand issues we are aiming to bring to our readership, butthese articles will attempt to emphasize the relevance ofthe literature to biochemistry and molecular biology edu-cation. In addition, as discussed earlier, there are manyinitiatives aimed at convincing scientists as to the impor-tance of scholarship in their teaching practice. However,for many reasons, including those given in this article,the majority of biochemists are not yet availing them-selves of this ‘‘gold mine’’ of knowledge and opportuni-ties. Hence, the major goal of this column is to help facil-itate this ‘‘bridging-the-gap’’ process for the bettermentof biochemistry teaching and learning, worldwide.

Acknowledgment—Adele Wolfson (Wellesley, Massachusetts),Judith G. Voet (Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania), Duane W.Sears (Univ. California, Santa Barbara), Konrad J. Schonborn(Georg-August-Universitat, Gottingen), and John Rogan (Univ.KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg) are thanked for their excellentcritique and advice during the conceptualization of this column.

REFERENCES

[1] R. J. Shavelson, L. Towne (2002) Scientific Research in Education,National Research Council Publication, National Academies Press,ISBN 0309082919.

[2] L. C. McDermott, E. F. Redish (1999) Resource letter-1: Physicseducation research, Am. J. Phys. 67, 755–767.

[3] O. De Jong (2000) Crossing the borders: Chemical educationresearch and teaching practice, Univ. Chem. Educ. 4, 29–32.

[4] D. L. Gabel (1999) Improving teaching and learning through chemis-try education research: A look to the future, J. Chem. Educ. 76,548–554.

[5] R. Lazarowitz, S. Penso (1992) High school students’ difficulties inlearning biology concepts, J. Biol. Educ. 26, 215–223.

[6] R. Kempa (2002) Research and research utilization in chemical edu-cation, Chem. Educ.: Res. Practice Eur. 3, 327–343.

[7] J. H. Wandersee, J. J. Mintzes, J. D. Novak (1994) Research on Al-ternative Conceptions in Science. In Gabel, D. L., Ed. Handbookof Research on Science Teaching and Learning, Macmillan, NewYork, pp. 177–210.

[8] D. J. Grayson, T. R. Anderson, L. G. Crossley (2001) A four-levelframework for identifying and classifying student conceptual andreasoning difficulties, Int. J. Sci. Educ. 23, 611–622.

[9] J. Parkinson (2001) Teachers’ awareness of education research,Educ. in Chem., January 25.

[10] J. D. Herron, S. C. Nurrenburn (1999) Chemical education research:Improving chemistry learning, J. Chem. Educ. 76, 1353–1361.

[11] L. C. McDermott (1991) Millikan lecture 1990: What we teach andwhat is learned—Closing the gap, Am. J. Phys. 59, 301–315.

[12] W. R. Robinson (1996) A view of science education research litera-ture, J. Chem. Educ. 73, A191–A192.

[13] O. De Jong, H.-J. Schmidt, U. Zoller (1998) Special section: Chemi-cal education research in Europe, Int. J. Sci. Educ. 20, 253–256.

[14] M. Fullan (1991) Overcoming Barriers to Educational Change, PaperCommissioned by the Office of the Under Secretary of the USDepartment of Education.

[15] M. H. Dembo, H. P. Seli (2004) Students’ resistance to change inlearning strategies courses, J. Dev. Educ. 27, 2–11.

[16] R. Duit (2007) Bibliography—STCSE, Students’ and teachers’ con-ceptions and science education: http://www.ipn.uni-kiel.de/aktuell/stcse/stcse.html (Accessed on August 24, 2007).

[17] T. R. Anderson, J. M. McKenzie (2007) Conceptual and reasoningdifficulties (CARD) resource: http://www.card.unp.ac.za/ (Accessedon June 23, 2007).

[18] R. Bucat (2004) Pedagogical content knowledge as a way forward:Applied research in chemistry education, Chem. Educ.: Res. Prac-tice 5, 215–228.

[19] A. H. Johnstone (2000) Chemical education research: Where fromhere? Chem. Educ. Res. Practice Univ. Chem. Educ. 4, 34–38.

[20] S. E. Thompson, S. R. Saxon, D. W. Sears (2006) Developing Bio-chemistry Concept Inventories for Diagnosing Students’ Miscon-ceptions, Proceedings of the Poster Presentation at the CentennialASBMB meeting, San Francisco, April 2006.

469

[21] S. Hamilton, M. J. T. M. da Costa, T. R. Anderson, J. G. Voet, D. Voet(2007) SBBq-IUBMB Workshop: Development of a Concept Inventoryfor the Molecular Life Sciences, Proceedings of the 36th SBBq and10th IUBMB Conference, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, May 21–25, 2007.

[22] Biological Concept Inventory (BCI) project: http://bioliteracy.net/(Accessed on July 4, 2007).

[23] M. W. Klymkowsky, K. Garvin-Doxas, M. Zeilik (2003) Bioliteracyand teaching efficacy: What biologists can learn from physicists,Cell Biol. Educ. 2, 155–161.

[24] D. L. Anderson, K. M. Fisher, G. J. Norman (2002) Developmentand evaluation of the conceptual inventory of natural selection,J. Res. Sci. Teach. 39, 952–978.

[25] G. Tsaparlis (2003) Globalisation in chemistry education and prac-tice, Chem. Educ.: Res. Practice 4, 3–10.

[26] S. D. Tunnicliffe (2006) The importance of research to biologicaleducation, J. Biol. Educ. 40, 99–100.

[27] Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholarship_of_Teaching_and_Learning. (Accessed on June20, 2007).

[28] L. Viglietta (1996) Science education journals: From theory to prac-tice, Sci. Educ. 80, 367–394.

[29] M. D. Gall, J. P. Gall, W. R. Borg (2003) Action Research, in Burvi-kovs AE, (ed). Educational Research: An Introduction, Boston, Pear-son Education, Inc., Chapter 18, pp. 578–597.

[30] K. D. Tanner, L. Chatman, D. Allen (2003) Approaches to biologyteaching and learning: Science teaching and learning across theschool-university divide—Cultivating conversations through scien-tist-teacher partnerships, Cell Biol. Educ. 2, 195–201.

[31] S. D. Bush, N. J. Pelaez, J. A. Rudd, M. T. Stevens, K. S. Williams,D. E. Allen, K. D. Tanner (2006) On hiring science faculty with edu-cation specialties for your science (not education) department,CBE-Life Sci. Educ. 5, 297–305.

[32] National Academy of Sciences (NAS) (2006) Workshop for discipli-nary-based science education research: http://www7.nationalaca-demies.org/cfe/STEM_Disciplines_Agenda.html (Accessed on Au-gust 23, 2007).

[33] California State University (CSU) Colloquium on Science Educa-tion (2006): http://www.calstate.edu/teacherEd/MSTI/ScienceEd_Colloquium_Article.shtml (Accessed on August 24, 2007).

[34] E. L. Boyer (1990) Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Pro-fessoriate, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teach-ing, Princeton, NJ.

[35] D. Dauphinee (1998) Research and education in the health scien-ces: Isn’t it time to redefine the meaning of scholarship? Adv.Health Sci. Educ. 3, 231–234.

[36] E. Seymour, D. J. Wiese, A.-B Hunter, S. M. Daffinrud (2000) Creat-ing a Better Mousetrap: On-Line Student Assessment of TheirLearning Gains, Proceedings of the National Meetings of the AmericanChemical Society Symposium, San Francisco, March 27, 2000 (http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/salgains/ftp/SALGPaperPresentationAtACS.pd).

[37] Biological Sciences Education Network (BEN): http://www.biosciednet.org/portal/ (Accessed August 23, 2007).

[38] K. J. Schonborn, T. R. Anderson (2006) The importance of visual lit-eracy in the education of biochemists, Biochem. Mol. Biol. Educ.34, 94–102.

470 BAMBED, Vol. 35, No. 6, pp. 465–470, 2007