Enzyme-substrate interactions are a concept that spans various topics in biochemistry and molecular biology (e.g., kinetics, metabolism, and translation). Deficiencies in understanding of enzyme-substrate interactions or lack thereof could hinder students' understandings of later concepts in biochemistry. Misconceptions uncovered in interviews with biochemistry students were used to create the Enzyme-Substrate Interactions Concept Inventory (ESICI) to allow for efficient measurement of students' understandings. The ESICI was subsequently administered to 707 biochemistry students at 16 institutions across the United States. The general misconceptions measured by the ESICI include enzyme and substrate characteristics, types of complementarities, enzyme conformational change, where and to what an inhibitor binds, and how the enzyme interacts with the substrate. It was found that 85% of students held three or more general misconceptions. Twenty specific misconceptions were indentified of which four were selected by more than 37% of students.

Misconceptions as detected by the enzyme-substrate interactions concept inventory

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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