Dina L. Newman

Biology exams rarely use visual models to engage higher-order cognitive skills

The paper surveys instructors and analyzes exams to find that visual models are underrepresented in assessments despite their importance for teaching molecular biology.

Sketchy understandings: Drawings reveal where students may need additional support to understand scale and abstraction in common representations of DNA

Drawing-based interviews with 35 biology undergraduates show 77% made scale errors and 86% made abstraction errors when sketching nucleotides, genes, and chromosomes against the DNA Landscape framework.

Probing visual literacy skills reveals unexpected student conceptions of chromosomes

This study investigates student misconceptions about chromosome representations through interviews, revealing common errors in interpreting abstract visualizations of chromosomes.