Abstract
Molecular biology can be challenging for undergraduate students because it requires visual literacy skills to interpret abstract representations of submicroscopic concepts, structures and processes. The Conceptual-Reasoning-Mode framework suggests that visual literacy relies on applying conceptual knowledge to appropriately reason with the different ways of representing concepts in molecular biology. We used this framework to specifically explore visual literacy related to chromosomes. We conducted 35 semi-structured interviews with students who had taken at least a year of college-level biology courses, and we asked them to sketch chromosomes, interpret an abstract representation of chromosomes, and use the abstract representation to answer a multiple-choice question about meiosis. While many participants used the correct vocabulary to describe chromosome structure and function, probing their visual literacy skills revealed gaps in their understanding. Notably, 97% of participants (34 of 35) held conceptual errors related to chromosome structure and function, which were often only revealed in their sketches or explanations of their sketches. Our findings highlight the importance of scaffolding visual literacy skills into instruction by teaching with a variety of visual models and engaging students in using and interpreting the conventions of abstract representations of chromosomes.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
This version of the manuscript has been revised to address comments from a peer-review process. These revisions include a greater emphasis on a visual literacy framework in the introduction (Figure 1), increased focus on the process of developing visual literacy skills in the introduction and discussion, changes to our methods for coding chromosome drawings in ways that capture both the shape and style of chromosome representations (Figure 3), and new framing to emphasize productive aspects of student reasoning. This revision also includes a new Supplemental Material that contains a table of the unexpected student conceptions and reasoning about chromosomes we encountered in this study.
