The Impact of a Web-Based Research Simulation in Bioinformatics on Students’ Understanding of Genetics

Abstract

Providing learners with opportunities to engage in activities similar to those carried out by scientists was addressed in a web-based research simulation in genetics developed for high school biology students. The research simulation enables learners to apply their genetics knowledge while giving them an opportunity to participate in an authentic genetics study using bioinformatics tools. The main purpose of the study outlined here is to examine how learning using this research simulation influences students’ understanding of genetics, and how students’ approaches to learning using the simulation influence their learning outcomes. Using both quantitative and qualitative procedures, we were able to show that while learning using the simulation students expanded their understanding of the relationships between molecular mechanisms and phenotype, and refined their understanding of certain genetic concepts. Two types of learners, research-oriented and task-oriented, were identified on the basis of the differences in the ways they seized opportunities to recognize the research practices, which in turn influenced their learning outcomes. The research-oriented learners expanded their genetics knowledge more than the task-oriented learners. The learning approach taken by the research-oriented learners enabled them to recognize the epistemology that underlies authentic genetic research, while the task-oriented learners referred to the research simulation as a set of simple procedural tasks. Thus, task-oriented learners should be encouraged by their teachers to cope with the scientists’ steps, while learning genetics through the simulation in a class setting.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Pre-questionnaire

What causes asthma?

Prof. V. and his colleagues are mainly concerned with the question: What causes asthma? Since asthma afflicts hundreds of millions of people worldwide, mostly during the winter and transition seasons, their research question is of interest to a great many people.

Asthma is a respiratory disease, which is characterized by chronic attacks of coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath. Exposure to certain environmental conditions such as cold, dry air and allergens that would be innocuous in a healthy individual might stimulate an asthma attack in an affected person. Asthma affects the small airways (bronchioles) that carry air in and out of the lungs. In a healthy person, the small airways are usually open. An asthma attack occurs when the muscle cells that surround the small airways contract. The contraction narrows the airways and therefore breathing becomes difficult.

A research study in which families with affected members were examined supports the hypothesis that the tendency to acquire asthma is inherited. This means that a person who has this inherited tendency might develop the disease symptoms as a result of a particular environmental stimulus.

One would think that after all this research, and with so many affected people, we would understand the cause of this disease. Prof. V. and his colleagues recently described how they are getting closer to a possible solution. Following Drazen and Weiss (2002).

The following sentences may have been said in a genetics laboratory, while trying to locate a particular gene that is involved in asthma. Please mark true/false for each statement. Use your knowledge in genetics in order to explain your answers (the explanations are as important as your choice of true or false).

• 1. Different alleles of the same gene have identical DNA sequences.

• 2. Every mutation in a DNA sequence changes the phenotype.

• 3. A certain gene that is associated with susceptibility to asthma is located in the same position on the same chromosome in all human beings.

• 4. The DNA sequence of a certain gene that is associated with susceptibility to asthma is identical in all human beings.

• 5. Every difference in DNA sequence among different people causes a genetic disease.

• 6. The tendency of a person to acquire asthma can be determined by testing his/her DNA sequence.

• 7. The sequence of the DNA located in the gametes is different from the sequence of the DNA in the autosomal cells of the same individual.

• 8. A mutation in a certain gene may affect its expression.

• 9. A mutation in a certain gene may affect the expression of other genes.

• 10. A rare allele can never be dominant.

• 11. Mutations in different genes may lead to a similar phenotype.

• 12. A certain gene can be located by examining one family.

Appendix 2: Post-questionnaire

Talk of genetics

“Man has an instinctive tendency to speak, as we see in the babble of our young children,” wrote Charles Darwin in 1871, “while no child has an instinctive tendency to bake, brew, or write.” The possibility that humans’ language ability has genetic roots was raised by researchers years ago, following observations of specific language impairments that run in families, which are more concordant in identical than in fraternal twins. However, until recently, little could be said about the genetic basis of such impairments.

Then, in 1990, investigators described the ‘KEs’—a large family, spanning several generations, in which some of the members suffer from a speech and language disorder. The affected members have problems identifying basic speech sounds, understanding sentences, judging grammatically, and other language skills. For example, they stumble in a task involving nonsense words, completing sequences such as “every day I plam, yesterday I ____.” However, the affected members of the family have intelligence scores in the normal range, and some score higher than their unaffected relatives. Following Pinker (2001).

Congratulations! You’ve been accepted as participants in a research study that focuses on identifying the gene involved in language disorder.

The same sentences from the pre-questionnaire appeared in the post-questionnaire, but in the context of language disorder (post-questionnaire text).