We have previously identified threshold concepts (TCs) for biochemistry, which are challenging and important ideas in a discipline. Currently we are working with a community of over 25 undergraduate biochemistry faculty members to develop instructional and assessment resources in order to 1) improve learning and teaching related to TCs and 2) measure changes in students’ understanding of targeted concepts. To accomplish the second goal, we used a three day intensive workshop as a part of a process to develop an ordered multiple choice assessment instrument designed to probe biochemistry students’ levels of understanding related to three TCs: biological steady state, the physical basis of interactions, and the thermodynamics of macromolecular structure formation. Involving a community of educators enabled us to collect content validity evidence for a bank of assessment questions, which is a crucial step towards producing an instrument that is likely to be readily adopted by instructors.<br/>

Community-produced assessment instrument for biochemistry: Linking research and practice

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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