Analysis of Attitudinal Student Learning Benefits from a Biochemistry CURE Adapted for the Online Format

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, institutions across the world have had to adjust their teaching methods. This shift to emergency remote instruction resulted in modifications to existing curricula, especially in the experimental science laboratory. There is a need to better understand student benefits of CUREs in this new environment. Using the Participant Perception Indicator (PPI) survey, we measured changes in students’ knowledge, experience, and confidence (KEC) growth over the course of a fully online biochemistry course. The results and analysis of the survey data gave light to three significant findings. Our analysis indicated the following: (1) Students learned more through bioinformatic experiments and related concepts than about their wet-lab counterparts. During this time, students were not able to perform the wet-lab techniques in person, relying instead on the virtual experience to learn these skills. (2) Students reported greater gains in learning outcomes KEC compared to wet-labs and computational techniques. The utilization of learning outcomes can only partially fill the gap left by the loss of physical interaction in experimental procedures. (3) Finally, students reported their experience and confidence gains lagged behind their knowledge of technique-based skills. Clearly, students are not as confident in their understanding of techniques when unable to perform them in the physical laboratory. Thus, even though students have extensive knowledge and understanding of the structure, protocols, and purpose of the experiments and techniques, student responses indicated that their experience and confidence is not on par with their knowledge acquired through fully online education.