Trends in Biology Higher Education: A journey from interactive videos to pre-labs to rubrics

Abstract

This thesis discusses a few developments from practice in the field of biology higher education. The first topic of this thesis discusses the use of educational videos that include “pop-up questions”. These questions appear at certain moments within a video and then immediately need to be answered by the students. The studies in this thesis discuss both learning effects and learning mechanisms of such pop-up questions and reveal that only the presence of these questions already contribute to student’s retention of the video content. The second topic of this thesis examines the learning effects of a pre-lab computer module that prepares students for upcoming lab activities. The results of this study suggest that students who did this pre-lab had more knowledge on the background theory and experimental procedure, and were better in connecting that theory with practice. The third topic of this thesis deliberates on the assessment of bachelor theses. This study shows that the average rubric scores can largely vary for theses assessed with the same final thesis grade. The study demonstrates that some rubric criteria correlate more with the final thesis grade than others. The best predictors for the final thesis grade are scientific quality and structure, and these criteria are also considered as highly relevant by the bachelor program.