Table 5.

Rubric for and analysis of card sorting strategy explanations

Participant type	Surface feature rationale	Sample quote
Tenure-track biology faculty (n = 23)	8.7%	“Others [cards] are united by the kind of organism (DIPMG).”
		“Plant, well plant are plants and they are just odd.”
Undergraduate non–biology major (n = 101)	37.6%	“I grouped certain cards together because I looked for key words in the problems such as: insects, humans, cells, and plants.”
		“With plants, any reference to photosynthesis, reproduction, environment, would categorize them into such a group.”
	Deep feature rationale
Tenure-track biology faculty (n = 23)	100%	“1st group dealt w/manner in which all organisms (microbe, plant or animal) process energy within their cells, energy metabolism was a unifying theme.”
		“Evolution and natural selection make sense to me but in another level I also liked structure and function. As for L, on the surface it seems not to fit but when you attempt to answer the question, energy and matter seemed the best category.
Undergraduate non–biology major (n = 101)	22%	“Bacteria & Pesticides evolving to battle their ‘cures’ was categorized as evolution.”
		“Energy seemed to be an underlying theme (atp) for a few.”