1887

Using Backward Design in Education Research: A Research Methods Essay

    Authors: Jamie L. Jensen1, Elizabeth G. Bailey2, Tyler A. Kummer1, K. Scott Weber3
    VIEW AFFILIATIONS HIDE AFFILIATIONS
    Affiliations: 1: Department of Biology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602; 2: Department of Biology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057; 3: Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602
    AUTHOR AND ARTICLE INFORMATION AUTHOR AND ARTICLE INFORMATION
    • Received 08 June 2017 Accepted 29 July 2017 Published 05 October 2017
    • ©2017 Author(s). Published by the American Society for Microbiology

    • [open-access] This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode), which grants the public the nonexclusive right to copy, distribute, or display the published work.
    • †Supplemental materials available at http://asmscience.org/jmbe
    • *Corresponding author. Mailing address: 4102 LSB, Department of Biology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602. Phone: 801-422-6896. Fax: 801-422-0090. E-mail: [email protected].
    Source: J. Microbiol. Biol. Educ. October 2017 vol. 18 no. 3 doi:10.1128/jmbe.v18i3.1367
MyBook is a cheap paperback edition of the original book and will be sold at uniform, low price.
  • XML
    50.92 Kb
  • HTML
    48.14 Kb
  • PDF
    194.47 Kb

    Abstract:

    Education research within the STEM disciplines applies a scholarly approach to teaching and learning, with the intent of better understanding how people learn and of improving pedagogy at the undergraduate level. Most of the professionals practicing in this field have ‘crossed over’ from other disciplinary fields and thus have faced challenges in becoming experts in a new discipline. In this article, we offer a novel framework for approaching education research design called Backward Design in Education Research. It is patterned on backward curricular design and provides a three-step, systematic approach to designing education projects: 1) Define a research question that leads to a testable causal hypothesis based on a theoretical rationale; 2) Choose or design the assessment instruments to test the research hypothesis; and 3) Develop an experimental protocol that will be effective in testing the research hypothesis. This approach provides a systematic method to develop and carry out evidence-based research design.

References & Citations

1. Wiggins G, McTighe J 2005 Understanding by design (expanded 2nd ed) Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Alexandria, Virginia
2. Fink LD 2013 Creating significant learning experiences: an integrated approach to designing college courses Wiley & Sons, Inc. San Francisco, CA
3. Wiggins G, McTighe J 2011 The understanding by design guide to creating high-quality units Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Alexandria, VA
4. National Research Council 2012 Discipline-based education research: understanding and improving learning in undergraduate science and engineering The National Academies Press Washington, DC
5. Boyer EL 1990 Scholarship reconsidered: priorities of the professoriate Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Princeton, NJ
6. Robson RL, Huckfeldt VE 2012 Ethical and practical similarities between pedagogical and clinical research J Microbiol Biol Educ 13 1 28 31 10.1128/jmbe.v13i1.360 23653778 3577290 http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v13i1.360
7. Bransford JD, Brown AL, Cocking RR 2000 How people learn: brain, mind, experience, and school The National Academies Press Washington, DC
8. Handelsman J, Miller S, Pfund C 2007 Scientific teaching W. H. Freeman New York
9. Ormrod JE 2000 Educational psychology: developing learners Pearson Upper Saddler River, NJ
10. Slater SJ, Slater TF, Bailey JM 2010 Discipline-based education research: a scientist’s guide W. H. Freeman New York
11. Branchaw JL, Pfund C, Rediske R 2011 Entering research: a facilitator’s manual W. H. Freeman and Co New York
12. Armbruster P, Maya M, Johnson E, Weiss M 2009 Active learning and student-centered pedagogy improve student attitudes and performance in introductory biology CBE Life Sci Educ 8 203 213 10.1187/cbe.09-03-0025 19723815 2736024 http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.09-03-0025
13. Bergstrom G 2011 Content vs. learning: an old dichotomy in science courses J Asynch Learn Netw 15 33 44
14. Carlson DL, Marshall PA 2009 Learning the science of research, learning the art of teaching: planning backwards in a college genetics course Biosci Educ 13 1 1 9http://dx.doi.org/10.3108/beej.13.4 10.3108/beej.13.4 http://dx.doi.org/10.3108/beej.13.4
15. Davidovitch N 2013 Learning-centered teaching and backward course design from transferring knowledge to teaching skills J Int Educ Res 9 329 338
16. Jensen JL, McDaniel MA, Woodard SM, Kummer TA 2014 Teaching to the test, or testing to teach: exams requiring higher order thinking skills encourage greater conceptual understanding Educ Psychol Rev 26 307 329 10.1007/s10648-013-9248-9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10648-013-9248-9
17. Linder KE, Cooper FR, McKenzie EM, Raesch M, Reeve PA 2014 Intentional teaching, intentional scholarship: applying backward design principles in a faculty writing group Innov High Educ 39 217 229 10.1007/s10755-013-9273-0 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10755-013-9273-0
18. White PJT, Heidemann MK, Smith JJ 2013 A new integrative approach to evolution education BioSci 63 586 594 10.1525/bio.2013.63.7.11 http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/bio.2013.63.7.11
19. Pfund C, Miller S, Brenner K, Bruns P, Chang A, Ebert-May D, Fagen AP, Gentile J, Gossens S, Khan IM, Labov JB, Maidl Pribbenow C, Susman M, Tong L, Wright R, Yuan RT, Wood WB, Handelsman J 2009 Summer institute to improve university science teaching Science 324 470 471 10.1126/science.1170015 19390031 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1170015
20. Ebert-May D, Weber RP 2006 FIRST—What’s next? CBE Life Sci Educ 5 27 28 10.1187/cbe.05-12-0133 17012186 1635135 http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.05-12-0133
21. Andreason AR 1985 ‘Backward’ market research Harvard Bus Rev May 1985
22. Pearson RW 2010 Statistical persuasions SAGE Publications, Inc Thousand Oaks, CA
23. Dolan EL 2015 Biology education research 2.0 CBE Life Sci Educ 14 ed1,2 10.1187/cbe.15-11-0229 26628560 4710408 http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-11-0229
24. Lawson AE 2010 How ‘scientific’ is science education research? J Res Sci Teach 47 257 275
25. Orgill M, Bodner GM 2007 Locks and keys: an analysis of biochemistry students’ use of analogies Biochem Molec Biol Educ 35 244 254 10.1002/bmb.66 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bmb.66
26. National Research Council 2012 Discipline-based education research: understanding and improving learning in undergraduate science and engineering Singer SR, Nielsen NR, Schweingruber HA The National Academies Press Washington, DC
27. Maslow AH 1943 A theory of human motivation Psychol Rev 50 370 396 10.1037/h0054346 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0054346
28. Maslow AH 1954 Motivation and personality Harper and Row New York
29. Lawson AE, Banks DL, Logvin M 2007 Self-efficacy, reasoning ability, and achievement in college biology J Res Sci Teach 44 706 724 10.1002/tea.20172 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/tea.20172
30. Johnson MA, Lawson AE 1998 What are the relative effects of reasoning ability and prior knowledge on biology achievement in expository and inquiry classes? J Res Sci Teach 35 89 103 10.1002/(SICI)1098-2736(199801)35:1<89::AID-TEA6>3.0.CO;2-J http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1098-2736(199801)35:1<89::AID-TEA6>3.0.CO;2-J
31. Lawson AE, Clark B, Cramer-Meldrum E, Falconer KA, Sequist JM, Kwon YJ 2000 Development of scientific reasoning in college biology: do two levels of general hypothesis-testing skills exist? J Res Sci Teach 37 81 101 10.1002/(SICI)1098-2736(200001)37:1<81::AID-TEA6>3.0.CO;2-I http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1098-2736(200001)37:1<81::AID-TEA6>3.0.CO;2-I
32. Theobald R, Freeman S 2014 Is it the intervention or the students? Using linear regression to control for student characteristics in undergraduate STEM education research CBE Life Sci Educ 13 41 48 10.1187/cbe-13-07-0136 24591502 3940461 http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe-13-07-0136

Supplemental Material

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journal/jmbe/10.1128/jmbe.v18i3.1367
2017-10-05
2021-01-24

Abstract:

Education research within the STEM disciplines applies a scholarly approach to teaching and learning, with the intent of better understanding how people learn and of improving pedagogy at the undergraduate level. Most of the professionals practicing in this field have ‘crossed over’ from other disciplinary fields and thus have faced challenges in becoming experts in a new discipline. In this article, we offer a novel framework for approaching education research design called Backward Design in Education Research. It is patterned on backward curricular design and provides a three-step, systematic approach to designing education projects: 1) Define a research question that leads to a testable causal hypothesis based on a theoretical rationale; 2) Choose or design the assessment instruments to test the research hypothesis; and 3) Develop an experimental protocol that will be effective in testing the research hypothesis. This approach provides a systematic method to develop and carry out evidence-based research design.

Highlighted Text: Show | Hide
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/jmbe/18/3/jmbe-18-50.html?itemId=/content/journal/jmbe/10.1128/jmbe.v18i3.1367&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Author and Article Information

  • Received 08 June 2017 Accepted 29 July 2017 Published 05 October 2017
  • ©2017 Author(s). Published by the American Society for Microbiology

  • [open-access] This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode), which grants the public the nonexclusive right to copy, distribute, or display the published work.
  • †Supplemental materials available at http://asmscience.org/jmbe
  • *Corresponding author. Mailing address: 4102 LSB, Department of Biology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602. Phone: 801-422-6896. Fax: 801-422-0090. E-mail: [email protected].

Back to top
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Please check the format of the address you have entered.
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error