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HOW WE TEACH

Undergraduates’ understanding of cardiovascular phenomena

¹ Department of Molecular Biophysics and Physiology, Rush Medical College, Chicago, Illinois 60612 ² Zoology Department, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195 ³ National Resource for Computers in Life Science Education, Seattle, Washington 98115 ⁴ Department of Biology, Niagara University, Niagara University, New York 14109 ⁵ Section of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior, University of California at Davis, Davis, California 95616 ⁶ Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73190 ⁷ Department of Physiology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40536 ⁸ Section of Neurobiology, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712 ⁹ Department of Biology, Glendale Community College, Glendale, Arizona 85302 ¹⁰ Biological Science and Nursing, Lexington Community College, Lexington, Kentucky 40506

Abstract

Undergraduates students in 12 courses at 8 different institutions were surveyed to determine the prevalence of 13 different misconceptions (conceptual difficulties) about cardiovascular function. The prevalence of these misconceptions ranged from 20 to 81% and, for each misconception, was consistent across the different student populations. We also obtained explanations for the students’ answers either as free responses or with follow-up multiple-choice questions. These results suggest that students have a number of underlying conceptual difficulties about cardiovascular phenomena. One possible source of some misconceptions is the students’ inability to apply simple general models to specific cardiovascular phenomena. Some implications of these results for teachers of physiology are discussed.

Key words: misconceptions; conceptual difficulties; mental models

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