Jorun Nyléhn

Biology education aims to enable citizens to make evidence-based decisions on both societal and personal levels; for example the biodiversity crisis we are currently facing and to take care of our ...

The development of students’ critical thinking skills is essential at university level and asked for in a multitude of policy documents as well as in work life. There is, however, a lack of consensus on what critical thinking is and whether university students and teachers understand critical thinking in a similar way. The present qualitative study investigates university students’ and teachers’ understanding of critical thinking, how they perceive critical thinking as a part of the teaching, and what barriers they perceive as limiting critical thinking, at two large universities in two countries (Norway and Germany). A total of 137 participants (46 teachers and 91 students) answered a questionnaire with mainly open-ended questions, followed by content analysis. Biologists were asked in both countries, and participants from medicine, history, and religion were included in the Norwegian sample. Altogether 41 codes were identified and sorted in 9 categories, which were further sorted in four main dimensions: skills (e.g., evaluation and analytical processing ), dispositions (e.g., open-mindedness and superficial processing ), knowledge, and external factors (e.g., information overload and time ). Teachers claimed a higher amount of critical thinking in teaching than students and seemed to have a somewhat broader overall understanding of critical thinking than the students (especially giving more emphasis to research-related factors as part of critical thinking). The largest differences between the investigated subgroups were found when asked to identify limiting factors to critical thinking (particularly psychological factors , for example, fear , and external factors , for example, information overload ). The study concludes with implications for teaching.

Views of the Nature of Science (NOS) among science students in higher education is investigated in a Norwegian university. The research utilizes the Views of the Nature of Science questionnaire version D+ (VNOS-D+), conducting a comprehensive analysis of NOS perspectives among 41 participants in STEM courses during the autumn semester of 2023. An overall decent understanding of NOS was found among all participating science students, regardless of gender, country of origin or study program. The mean values of the results for each aspect of NOS fluctuate between 1.39 and 2.68 on a scale from 0 (inadequate), 1 (naïve), 2 (transitional), to 3 (adequate) and are distributed rather homogeneously (x̄ = 2.02), although the aspect of law and theory stands out for its prevalence of naïve responses (x̄ = 1.39). No significant improvement in NOS understanding was observed with increased academic tenure in this study. The study shows promising usefulness of the VNOS-D+ questionnaire in higher education, as a valuable tool for gaining standardized insights into NOS perspectives. This research contributes to the discourse on science education by examining science students’ understandings of NOS in higher education in a previously rarely examined location.

To cope with an unpredictable future, higher education in mathematics and science (MS) needs to educate a knowledgeable and skilled workforce. Co-operative learning (CL) is a teaching method associated with increased academic achievement and development of generic skills. Thus, the purposes of this scoping review are to assess the evidence base of CL in undergraduate MS education to inform teaching practices and to identify potential knowledge gaps to inform future research. The review covers 24 empirical studies conducted from 2010 to 2020 on the prevalence, uses, and outcomes of CL elements in undergraduate MS education. The results show that there are few such studies, and these are rarely conducted outside the US or in disciplines other than chemistry. The most frequently implemented CL elements in the included studies are heterogeneous group formation, the use of roles, and different CL structures. The most prevalent student outcome of implemented CL elements in the reviewed studies is enhanced academic success, followed by student attitudes, generic skills, and psychological health. The results have implications for future implementation of and research on CL in international MS higher education.