Document Type

Honors Thesis

Abstract

Microbiology lab is a foundational course within microbiology, biology, and nursing students’ education at many colleges. Overall, while microbiology lab pedagogy within upper level courses has shifted from a cookbook style lab to favor more inquiry based labs, there is a lack of introductory level microbiology inquiry based labs. This study aims to both introduce an easily adaptable one week guided inquiry based lab to an introductory microbiology lab curriculum and assess the effects of this pedagogy change on the students. To analyze the impact of this shift, student attitude and success within UT Arlington’s undergraduate microbiology labs were assessed via student perception surveys and concept inventory surveys respectively, before and after the lab. Results from this study serve as an example of how professors can introduce guided inquiry to their classroom as well as explain what additional learning targets students can gain from the course.

Disciplines

Microbiology

Publication Date

5-2024

Language

English

Faculty Mentor of Honors Project

Dr. Whitney Tholen

Comments

I would like to thank my faculty mentor Dr. Whitney Tholen for her help and guidance through this research project. Her belief in me and support throughout my education at UT Arlington helped me not only complete my honors project but also my biology degree. Thank you, Dr. Walter Schargel, for your assistance with data analysis. Thank you to the honors college for guiding me though the writing process and supporting my education.

License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Included in

Microbiology Commons

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