TABLE 4.
Examples of matched and mismatched understanding of ID from same-student essay and interview responses
| Construct | Essay responses | Interview quotes |
|---|---|---|
| Disciplinary grounding | A1. Willow, Chemical Ecology | |
| “The unknown plant bears fruits that appear healthy and edible, but without analysis of their nutritional content nothing can be said for certain. We intend on determining the mineral content of the fruit using near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy, as well as measuring secondary-metabolites to deter herbivory. Assessing floral morphology will provide insight into its pollination syndrome, and, consequently, its method of pollination.” | “I think about how plants use compounds, there’s all sorts of ecological relationships between plants, and different organisms, and pollinators, and the idea of plants producing nectar has a lot to do with chemistry. Then plants producing all sorts of volatile compounds that attract predatory organisms for defences.” | |
| Avg. construct score: mastery (4) | Matched understanding: yes | |
| A2. Birch, Chemical Ecology | ||
| “The morphological character of the flower also does not indicate bee pollination. The inflorescence consists of a single yellow-orange tubular corolla with a deep nectar reserve, which suggests pollination by Lepidoptera or possibly hummingbirds. Further tests need to be conducted to figure out which one.” | “We talked about compounds and secondary compounds of plants. There’s even, when you go down to systematics you’re talking about how things are related. To find out how things are related you look at the DNA of plants the molecular level through DNA sequencing and GenBank as well as they work morphologically.” | |
| Avg. construct score: novice (2.25) | Matched understanding: no | |
| Integration | B1. Cedar, Plant Systematics | |
| “We will perform a phylogenetic analysis using microsatellites to find out what species of fruit or vegetable this plant is most closely related to. We will use microsatellites since this new species must have recently diverged from an extant crop plant species. We can then contact chemists to analyze the chemical compounds present and correlate this with related species from the phytogenic analysis.” | “It’s important to know how things are actually working, requiring the knowledge of chemistry and viewing biological systems in a chemistry sort of lens. Learning about geology and chemistry would really help in phylogenetic projects, just because understanding the history of the earth and the geography can help us interpret trends in the genotypes of organisms. The moulding of these knowledge sets ends in a greater understanding of plants holistically.” | |
| Avg. construct score: mastery (4) | Matched understanding: yes | |
| B2. Magnolia, Environmental Science | ||
| “How the park will be restored mostly comes down to the project goals. This is a public park after all […] not a far out wilderness ecosystem. So, what does the public want?” | “[Environmental restoration] means using systems science and science of cycles in biogeochemistry. It’s trying to bring back a previous state using history to look back at reference sites. Restoration requires collaborating between experts, having a more well-rounded view, because you’re bring[ing] in hydrologist to geologist, a biologist, a chemist. You’re thinking about all the different aspects of something instead of being one sided.” | |
| Avg. construct score: naïve (1) | Matched understanding: no | |
| Critical awareness | C1. Maple, Plant Systematics | |
| “If the species is determined to be a self-pollinator and we determined the origin of its evolution through genetic sequencing there is a possibility that we could use cross pollination. However, as many self-pollinators use wind or rain as transportation modes for pollen, this could ultimately lead to an uncontrolled spread of the plants’ genes to other species, thus having a negative effect [on] the ecosystem. Alternatively, we could assess pollination through the measurement of volatile organic compounds. If all else fails, I would reassess my methodological approach.” | “I like the, ‘it may or may not happen this way’, in biology. I love going out into nature and [wondering], ‘Why is it that way?’ It is very important to set it up beforehand, like my bee pollination experimental design, and map it out and it may not go as planned. A big part of science is just recognizing why you failed or how you can do things better the next time around. Why didn’t they pollinate? Why did the plants not sprout? Why did we not get the results that we wanted? You need to go need back and check your experimental process!” | |
| Avg. construct score: mastery (4) | Matched understanding: yes | |
| C2. Hazel, Biochemical Virology | ||
| “We can live in a better world, and this better world must inherently include all people on the planet earth. By providing a sustainable, high nutrient food source, we can [achieve] this dream thereby halting human starvation.” | “Learning about how to deal with experiments not turning out how you want them to turn out—what’s possibly good data when addressing the behemoth issue of food insecurity. Learning to take a step back—which variable or parameters are we going to change here to make this still useful, even though it didn’t turn out how we wanted it to turn out.” | |
| Avg. construct score: naïve (1) | Matched understanding: no | |