Advances in Physiology Education, Vol 269, Issue 6 42-S49, Copyright © 1995 by American Physiological Society
Investigative approach to frog gastrocnemius laboratory: potential impact on animal use in teaching laboratories
I. G. Welsford, A. E. Flamm, J. Barr, B. Fenton, J. R. Wright and L. R. Kellerman
Department of Biology, Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois 61625, USA.
With growing concern over the use of animal experimentation in the teaching
of physiology, many biology departments are reassessing the use of animal
experiments in the teaching lab. However, it may be just as important to
assess how animal experimentation is used in the undergraduate teaching
laboratory rather than simply assessing if animal experimentation should be
used at all. In our study, sophomore-level life science students enrolled
in a core organismal biology course undertook a laboratory exercise
designed to elucidate properties of muscles and neuromuscular communication
following two protocols: 1) a standard demonstrational model wherein
students were told to undertake the exercise as a means to understand
physiological processes that they had been exposed to previously in lecture
or 2) an investigative model wherein the use of the gastrocnemius
preparation was a logical next step in an ongoing investigation, the
content of which was driven by student-generated hypotheses. We have
observed a significant decrease in a number of the negative comments
concerning the use of animals in experimentation (25.6 vs. 3.6%) since the
implementation of the investigative approach to the laboratory, suggesting
that curricular approaches to the use of animals in the teaching laboratory
may have an impact on student attitudes concerning animal experimentation.
