Understanding Homeostatic Regulation: The Role of Relationships and Conditions in Feedback Loop Reasoning.

Understanding homeostasis is a goal of biology education curricula, as homeostasis is a core feature of living systems. Identifying and understanding the underlying molecular feedback mechanisms appear to be challenging for students. Understanding the properties and mechanisms of such complex homeostatic systems requires feedback loop reasoning, which is a part of systems thinking.

Secondary Students' Reasoning on Pedigree Problems.

Pedigree problems are typical genetics tasks in schools. They are well suited to help students learn scientific reasoning, representing realistic genetic problems. However, pedigree problems also pose complex requirements, especially for secondary students.

Modeling and Measuring Tree-Reading Skills in Undergraduate and Graduate Students.

Evolutionary trees are central to learning about evolutionary processes, yet students at all educational levels struggle to read and interpret them. The synthetic tree-reading model (STREAM), based on published and not yet empirically tested models, was tested to determine whether the assumed hierarchy of the model could be substantiated and how far students' skills could be distinguished empirically. We developed a tree-reading test instrument based on STREAM and assessed it with 592 undergraduate and graduate biology students.