An Exploration of Systems Thinking in Undergraduate Biology

The field of biology is becoming increasingly fragmented, and this fragmentation spills over into the ways our students think and learn about biology. Biology education policy documents stress the importance of teaching biology in an integrated manner and call for the biology education research community to establish a unifying paradigm for the field. Systems, a core concept of biology, can function as this unifying paradigm, with systems thinking skills (STS) as a foundational skillset for biologists. However, there remains a large gap in both our knowledge of undergraduates' STS, and in the tools to assess and teach these skills. The goal of this dissertation is to address these gaps and provide evidence to support the adoption of systems and ST skills as a unifying paradigm for biology education. In my first chapter, I evaluated the benefits and limitations of two item formats for STS. Data from this study indicate that using different assessment formats elicits different concepts, ideas, and reasoning patterns in student responses. In my second chapter, I used qualitative inquiry to characterize the STS used by biologists at different levels of expertise, shedding light on the differences in how novice and expert biologists use ST skills, such as ease in reasoning across levels of biological organization, metacognitive reflection, and the use (or lack thereof) of systems-centric language. For my third chapter, I conducted an autoethnographic reflection on the development of a STS-focused curriculum, providing an in-depth look into the process of integrating ST into curricula, and revealing practical limitations, demands, and challenges that instructors may face. My research is some of the first to explore the development of STS above the K12 level, and the first to design a course explicitly around them. The results of these projects inform course development, assessment design, and even curricula, which will ultimately support more students in developing the skills needed to succeed as biologists. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]