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- Bohlin, Gustav, 1981-
(author)
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Evolving germs – Antibiotic resistance and natural selection in education and public communication
- 2017
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Bacterial resistance to antibiotics threatens modern healthcare on a global scale. Several actors in society, including the general public, must become more involved if this development is to be countered. The conveyance of relevant information provided through education and media reports is therefore of high concern. Antibiotic resistance evolves through the mechanisms of natural selection; in this way, a sound understanding of these mechanisms underlies explanations of causes and the development of effective risk-reduction measures. In addition to natural selection functioning as an explanatory framework to antibiotic resistance, bacterial resistance as a context seems to possess a number of qualities that make it suitable for teaching natural selection – a subject that has been proven notoriously hard to teach and learn. A recently suggested approach for learning natural selection involves so-called threshold concepts, which encompass abstract and integrative ideas. The threshold concepts associated with natural selection include, among others, the notions of randomness as well as vast spatial and temporal scales. Illustrating complex relationships between concepts on different levels of organization is one, of several, areas where visualizations are efficient. Given the often-imperceptible nature of threshold concepts as well as the fact that natural selection processes occur on different organizational levels, visual accounts of natural selection have many potential benefits for learning.Against this background, the present dissertation explores information conveyed to the public regarding antibiotic resistance and natural selection, as well as investigates how these topics are presented together, by scrutinizing media including news reports, websites, educational textbooks and online videos. The principal method employed in the media studies was content analysis, which was complemented with various other analytical procedures. Moreover, a classroom study was performed, in which novice pupils worked with a series of animations explaining the evolution of antibiotic resistance. Data from individual written assignments, group questions and video-recorded discussions were collected and analyzed to empirically explore the potential of antibiotic resistance as a context for learning about evolution through natural selection.Among the findings are that certain information, that is crucial for the public to know, about antibiotic resistance was conveyed to a low extent through wide-reaching news reporting. Moreover, explanations based on natural selection were rarely included in accounts of antibiotic resistance in any of the examined media. Thus, it is highly likely that a large proportion of the population is never exposed to explanations for resistance development during education or through newspapers. Furthermore, the few examples that were encountered in newspapers or textbooks were hardly ever visualized, but presented only in textual form. With regard to videos purporting to explain natural selection, it was found that a majority lacked accounts of central key concepts. Additionally, explanations of how variation originates on the DNA-level were especially scarce. These and other findings coming from the content analyses are discussed through the lens of scientific literacy and could be used to inform and strengthen teaching and scientific curricula with regards to both antibiotic resistance and evolution. Furthermore, several factors of interest for using antibiotic resistance in the teaching of evolution were identified from the classroom study. These involve, among others, how learners’ perception of threshold concepts such as randomness and levels of organization in space and time are affected by the bacterial context
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| 2. |
- Bohlin, Gustav, 1981-, et al.
(author)
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Evolving germs – Introducing novice pupils to the evolution of bacterial resistance to antibiotics
- 2017
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- There is a dual relationship between antibiotic resistance and biological evolution. Antibiotic resistance is typically used as a motivation for why we need an efficient evolution education given that evolutionary reasoning improves our understanding of causes and suggested countermeasures. On the other hand, antibiotic resistance has also been suggested as a useful context in which evolution can be taught, based primarily but not solely on the quick generation times of bacteria. In the present study, we explore the potential benefits with using antibiotic resistance as an example when introducing evolution to novice pupils (aged 13-14). We created a series of animations that pupils interacted with in groups of 3-5 (total n=32). Data was collected on both individual (pre-posttest) and group (collaborative group questions) level. In addition, the exercise was video-taped and the full transcripts were analyzed inductively. The results show that a majority of the pupils succeeded in applying basic evolutionary reasoning to make predictions on antibiotic resistance during and after the exercise, suggesting that this may be a successful approach. Cautions to be aware of include pupils’ use of teleological and antropomorphic reasoning, especially in discussions on submicroscopical phenomena such as genetic processes. Implications for teaching include both lessons from the design of animations as well as the identification of common misunderstandings. The analysis also identifies and points toward several possible future research endeavours.
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| 3. |
- Friberg, Andrew S, et al.
(author)
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Transplantable functional islet mass – predictive biomarkers of graft function in islet after kidney transplanted patients
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The ability to predict clinical function of a specific islet batch released for clinical transplantation using standardized variables remains an elusive goal. Analysis of donor, islet isolation, quality control and recipient variables was undertaken in 110 islet after kidney (IAK) transplants and correlated to the pre- to 28-day posttransplant change in C-peptide to glucose and creatinine ratio (ΔCP/GCr). Using backward multiple regression the variables positively associated to ΔCP/GCr were islet volume transplanted (p<0.001) and glucose stimulated insulin secretion (SI) (p=0.009). Factors negatively associated to ΔCP/GCr were cold ischemia time (CIT) (p=0.002) and total tissue volume (p=0.009). Donor age, donor body mass index, number of retrieved organs from the donor, preservation solution, islet insulin content, body weight of the recipient of the islets had no influence on transplant function. The transplantable functional islet mass (TFIM), accounting for islet volume transplanted, SI, CIT, and total tissue volume explained 39% of the variance of the clinical outcome in the IAK data set. Therefore, the TFIM provides a straightforward and potent tool to guide the decision to utilize a specific islet preparation for clinical transplantation.
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| 4. |
- Larsson, Caroline, et al.
(author)
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Using a teaching-learning sequence (TLS), based on a physical model, to develop students' understanding of self-assembly
- 2011
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In: Authenticity in Biology Education. - Braga, Portugal : CIEC, Universidade do Minho. - 9789728952198 ; , s. 67-77
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Self-assembly is a biological process in which free subunits combine to form molecular complexes. Despite being considered one of the ‘big ideas’ in molecular life sciences, only limited education research has been performed on this topic. The objectives of this study were to investigate students’ learning of self-assembly in an authentic learning environment: a teaching-learning sequence (TLS). Twenty third-year biochemistry students in South Africa participated in the study. The TLS included a tutorial exercise with a physical model of a poliovirus capsid. A mixed-methods approach was employed to collect qualitative and quantitative data from interviews and written pre- and post-tests. A significant improvement in test scores was found, and it was observed that the TLS could support students’ understanding of self-assembly. Some conceptual and visualization difficulties were also identified. Using the model in a TLS was associated with positive attitudes and engagement among the participants.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Stenlund, Jörgen, 1959-
(author)
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Visualizing the abyss of time : Students’ interpretation of visualized deep evolutionary time
- 2023
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The immense time scales involved in Deep evolutionary time (DET) is a threshold concept in biology and interpreting temporal aspects of DET is demanding. DET is communicated through various visualizations that include static two-dimensional representations, low interactivity animations, as well as high interactivity interfaces. Given the importance of DET as fundamental scientific knowledge of potential societal application, there is a need for educational research on students’ interpretation of visually communicated DET. This thesis explores students’ interpretation of different forms of visualized DET along a continuum of interactivity. The research aim is four-fold, and probes how students interpret DET visualizations in terms of temporal aspects, communicated evolutionary concepts, degree of visualization interactivity, and generated affective responses.The work comprises four studies, which as a collective, adopt exploratory and multi-method designs. A total of 505 students participated. Data were collected from questionnaires, task-based questions, and semi-structured interviews. Data analysis was qualitative and quantitative, and incorporated deductive and inductive approaches. In analysing students' interpretation of static two-dimensional DET visualizations, an instrument for measuring knowledge about the visual representation of deep evolutionary time (DET-Vis) was developed. Emergence of a unidimensional construct during validation represents knowledge about the visual communication of DET. Inspection of item performance suggests that interpreting visualized DET requires both procedural and declarative knowledge. Analysis of students’ interpretation of a low interactivity DET animation, communicating hominin evolution revealed five temporal aspects influencing interpretation: events at specific times, relative order, concurrent events, time intervals, and time interval durations. A further shift across the continuum involved analysing students’ interpretation of a high-interactivity DET visualization of a three-dimensional phylogenetic tree. Finger-based zooming was associated with movement within the tree itself, or as movement in time, respectively, and related to identified misinterpretations. Further analysis showed that interpreting DeepTree evoked the epistemic affective responses of awe, curiosity, surprise, and confusion. Affective responses were expressed in relation to five evolutionary conceptual themes, namely biological relationships, evolutionary time, biological diversity, common descent, and biological structure or terminology. The thesis findings have implications for teaching, visualization design and future research. Exposing students to various DET visualizations across the continuum could support DET teaching. Visual communication of temporal aspects should be carefully considered in DET visualization design. Future work on relationships between affect, highly interactive visualizations, and evolution concepts will provide further insight for leveraging learning and teaching of DET.
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| 10. |
- Tibell, Lena A.E. 1952-, et al.
(author)
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Haptic Influences on Reasoning and Learning in Protein Education
- 2008
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In: Proceedings of the 9th Nordic Research Symposium on Science Education. - : Science Education Research Group, School of Education, University of Iceland. - 9789979985174 ; , s. 165-168
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- An emerging viewpoint of cognition suggests that the body has a central role in shaping the mind and that cognitive processes are deeply rooted in the body´s interaction with the world that, “embodied cognition or learning”. If so, the documented difficulties for learners to grasp and to engage in molecular sciences might, at least in part, explained by the lack of direct experience of the micro world. The term haptics encompasses the tactual sensation and the human interaction with the external environment through touch. When integrated as part of a computer-based virtual environment, haptics refers to the artificial tactual sensation used to simulate the experience of actually touching or feeling a real object that occur in response to user movements. The present work aims to evaluate the gains of a haptic element from a learning perspective, when haptics is added to an educational virtual reality environment for students learning the concepts of molecular interactions in proteins. A combined qualitative and quantitative approach is taken, using data from tests and interviews (with a subset of the subjects). The study is an attempt to fill some of the gaps in the research about possible benefits from using force feedback technology, focusing specifically on the learning gains from a study of a virtual protein model. The computer model did not help the students to solve their tasks faster, but it appears to help them to gain a deeper understanding of the docking process, partly by challenging their preconceptions. Further, we propose that the force feedback might constitute a critical feature for understanding the involvement of the dynamics and forces involved in the process.
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