Using the Biology Card Sorting Task to Measure Changes in Conceptual Expertise during Postsecondary Biology Education

While there have been concerted efforts to reform undergraduate biology toward teaching students to organize their conceptual knowledge like experts, there are few tools that attempt to measure this. We previously developed the Biology Card Sorting Task (BCST), designed to probe how individuals organize their conceptual biological knowledge. Previous results showed the BCST could differentiate between different populations, namely non–biology majors (NBM) and biology faculty (BF). In this study, we administered the BCST to three additional populations, using a cross-sectional design: entering biology majors (EBM), advanced biology majors (ABM), and biology graduate students (BGS). Intriguingly, ABM did not initially sort like experts any more frequently than EBM. However, once the deep-feature framework was revealed, ABM were able to sort like experts more readily than did EBM. These results are consistent with the conclusion that biology education enables advanced biology students to use an expert-like conceptual framework. However, these results are also consistent with a process of “selection,” wherein students who persist in the major may have already had an expert-like conceptual framework to begin with. These results demonstrate the utility of the BCST in measuring differences between groups of students over the course of their undergraduate education.

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Development of the Biology Card Sorting Task to Measure Conceptual Expertise in Biology

CBE—Life Sciences Education ◽

10.1187/cbe.13-05-0096 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 628-644 ◽

Cited By ~ 32

Author(s):

Julia I. Smith ◽

Elijah D. Combs ◽

Paul H. Nagami ◽

Valerie M. Alto ◽

Henry G. Goh ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Conceptual Knowledge ◽

Assessment Tool ◽

Biology Education ◽

Assessment Tools ◽

Sorting Task ◽

Biological Knowledge ◽

Card Sorting ◽

Card Sorting Task ◽

Deep Feature ◽

Biological Concepts

There are widespread aspirations to focus undergraduate biology education on teaching students to think conceptually like biologists; however, there is a dearth of assessment tools designed to measure progress from novice to expert biological conceptual thinking. We present the development of a novel assessment tool, the Biology Card Sorting Task, designed to probe how individuals organize their conceptual knowledge of biology. While modeled on tasks from cognitive psychology, this task is unique in its design to test two hypothesized conceptual frameworks for the organization of biological knowledge: 1) a surface feature organization focused on organism type and 2) a deep feature organization focused on fundamental biological concepts. In this initial investigation of the Biology Card Sorting Task, each of six analytical measures showed statistically significant differences when used to compare the card sorting results of putative biological experts (biology faculty) and novices (non–biology major undergraduates). Consistently, biology faculty appeared to sort based on hypothesized deep features, while non–biology majors appeared to sort based on either surface features or nonhypothesized organizational frameworks. Results suggest that this novel task is robust in distinguishing populations of biology experts and biology novices and may be an adaptable tool for tracking emerging biology conceptual expertise.

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A Problem-Sorting Task Detects Changes in Undergraduate Biological Expertise over a Single Semester

CBE—Life Sciences Education ◽

10.1187/cbe.16-05-0175 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. ar21 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Anne-Marie Hoskinson ◽

Jessica Middlemis Maher ◽

Cody Bekkering ◽

Diane Ebert-May

Keyword(s):

Sorting Task ◽

Biological Knowledge ◽

Card Sorting ◽

Introductory Biology ◽

Undergraduate Biology ◽

Biology Students ◽

Card Sorting Task ◽

Disciplinary Expertise ◽

Novices And Experts ◽

Introductory Biology Course

Calls for undergraduate biology reform share similar goals: to produce people who can organize, use, connect, and communicate about biological knowledge. Achieving these goals requires students to gain disciplinary expertise. Experts organize, access, and apply disciplinary knowledge differently than novices, and expertise is measurable. By asking introductory biology students to sort biological problems, we investigated whether they changed how they organized and linked biological ideas over one semester of introductory biology. We administered the Biology Card Sorting Task to 751 students enrolled in their first or second introductory biology course focusing on either cellular–molecular or organismal–population topics, under structured or unstructured sorting conditions. Students used a combination of superficial, deep, and yet-uncharacterized ways of organizing and connecting biological knowledge. In some cases, this translated to more expert-like ways of organizing knowledge over a single semester, best predicted by whether students were enrolled in their first or second semester of biology and by the sorting condition completed. In addition to illuminating differences between novices and experts, our results show that card sorting is a robust way of detecting changes in novices’ biological expertise—even in heterogeneous populations of novice biology students over the time span of a single semester.

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Brief Report: An Exploration of Cognitive Flexibility of Autistic Adolescents with Low Intelligence Using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders ◽

10.1007/s10803-021-05134-1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Stephanie Lock Man Lung ◽

Armando Bertone

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Flexibility ◽

Sorting Task ◽

Card Sorting ◽

Card Sorting Task ◽

Wisconsin Card Sorting Task ◽

Wisconsin Card Sorting

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Effects of Success and Failure with Institutionalized Mentally Retarded Adults

Psychological Reports ◽

10.2466/pr0.1966.18.3.779 ◽

1966 ◽

Vol 18 (3) ◽

pp. 779-782 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

William I. Gardner

Keyword(s):

Young Adults ◽

Mentally Retarded ◽

Adolescents And Young Adults ◽

Sorting Task ◽

Card Sorting ◽

Partial Failure ◽

Failure Group ◽

Card Sorting Task ◽

Total Failure ◽

Success Group

Institutionalized mentally retarded adolescents and young adults ( N = 80) performed on a card-sorting task immediately preceding and following a series of neutral, success, total failure or partial failure experiences. As predicted, the success group demonstrated an increment in performance, the total failure group showed no change in performance, and the partial failure group showed a decrement in performance.

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Verbal-reinforcement combinations and the relative frequency of informative feedback in a card-sorting task.

Journal of Experimental Psychology ◽

10.1037/h0024121 ◽

1967 ◽

Vol 73 (2) ◽

pp. 220-226 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Lyle E. Bourne ◽

Donald E. Guy ◽

Nancy Wadsworth

Keyword(s):

Relative Frequency ◽

Sorting Task ◽

Card Sorting ◽

Informative Feedback ◽

Verbal Reinforcement ◽

Card Sorting Task

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Spatiotemporal analysis of feedback processing during a card sorting task using spatially filtered MEG

Neuroscience Letters ◽

10.1016/j.neulet.2006.09.073 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 410 (1) ◽

pp. 31-36 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Sarah J. Bayless ◽

William C. Gaetz ◽

Douglas O. Cheyne ◽

Margot J. Taylor

Keyword(s):

Spatiotemporal Analysis ◽

Sorting Task ◽

Card Sorting ◽

Feedback Processing ◽

Card Sorting Task

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Problems in the Interpretation of Cognitive Abnormalities in Schizophrenia

The British Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.1192/bjp.129.1.32 ◽

1976 ◽

Vol 129 (1) ◽

pp. 32-35 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

D. R. Hemsley

Keyword(s):

Movement Time ◽

Decision Time ◽

Sorting Task ◽

Card Sorting ◽

Clinical Tests ◽

Significant Relation ◽

Card Sorting Task ◽

Schizophrenic Group ◽

Information Processing Deficits ◽

Direct Measures

SummaryThis study compared matched groups of patients with acute schizophrenia and with depression on three tests used in the assessment of schizophrenic thinking disorder. Most measures derived from these tests significantly differentiated the groups; however, within the schizophrenic group there were no significant correlations between scores on the three tests. Further data were available from a choice reaction-time card-sorting task, from which estimates of distractability, stimulus decision time, response decision time, and movement time, were obtained. Only one significant relation was found between these measures and scores on the clinical tests. The possible confounding effects of intelligence and responsiveness are discussed. It is argued that more direct measures of the latter are preferable to interpreting tests of thinking disorder in terms of information processing deficits.

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