Ripped from the Headlines: Using Current Events and Deliberative Democracy to Improve Student Performance in and Perceptions of Nonmajors Biology Courses †

Flow chart depicting the general organization of each unit in the redesigned course. “n” refers to the number of class meetings in the unit. Examples of the Policy Introduction Worksheet and Final Policy Worksheet are available in Appendix 1 and Appendix 2 , respectively.

Course format of previous versions of the course (“Old Course Design”) and the deliberative democracy format (“Course Redesign”). A) Percentage of class time spent in various activities, calculated by adding the total number of class hours spent in an activity and dividing it by the total number of class hours in the semester. b) percentage of students’ final course grades attributed to various activities.

Effects of course format on student performance. The average scores on the unit exams administered during both versions of the course are shown. * p < 0.02 when comparing exam scores from the course redesign with the old course design.

Effects of course format on content mastery. A) The average score on a standardized content exam by students enrolled in different course formats taught by different professors. * p = 0.002 when comparing students in the redesigned course with the traditional lecture course. ** p = 0.04 when comparing students in the redesigned course with the mixed-format course. B) Fold change in performance on the content exam when comparing student responses at the end of the semester and the beginning of the semester, where 1 = no change, and > 1 = improvement. Bars for “overall” indicate student performance on entire content exam. Remaining bars indicate student performance on questions grouped by instructional unit. Each question’s unit relationship is listed in italics in Appendix 3 .

Effects of course format on students’ perceptions of their understanding of biology-related topics. A) Fold change in students’ self-reporting that they understand the topic well or very well. B) Fold change in students’ self-reported understanding of topics grouped by instructional unit. Each topic’s unit relationship is listed in italics in Appendix 3 . All data are presented as a comparison of pooled responses from the end of the course with pooled responses from the beginning of the course. Perceptions were measured in the redesigned course and in a mixed-format version of the course taught by a different professor.

Effects of course format on students’ feelings about biology. A) Fold change in students’ feelings of interest, fun, stress, stimulation, enjoyment, and relevance with regard to biology, as measured by students agreeing or strongly agreeing with the surveyed statement. B) Fold change in students’ perception that biology is important or very important for their career aspirations, political involvement, personal lives, and citizenship. All data are presented as a comparison of pooled responses from the end of the course with pooled responses from the beginning of the course. Perceptions were measured in the redesigned course and in a mixed-format version of the course taught by a different professor.