Diagnostic assessments of student thinking about stochastic processes

Abstract

A number of research studies indicate that students often have difficulties in understanding the presence and/or the implications of stochastic processes within biological systems. While critical to a wide range of phenomena, the presence and implications of stochastic processes are rarely explicitly considered in the course of formal instruction. To help instructors identify gaps in student understanding, we have designed and tested six open source activities covering a range of scenarios, from death rates to noise in gene expression, that can be employed, alone or in combination, as diagnostics to reveal student thinking as a prelude to the presentation of stochastic processes within a course or a curriculum.