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Metabolic pathways visualization skills development by undergraduate students
Author(s) -
dos Santos Vanessa J. S. V.,
Galembeck Eduardo
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
biochemistry and molecular biology education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.34
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1539-3429
pISSN - 1470-8175
DOI - 10.1002/bmb.20858
Subject(s) - visualization , test (biology) , creative visualization , metabolic pathway , mathematics education , computer science , psychology , biology , biochemistry , artificial intelligence , ecology , metabolism
We have developed a metabolic pathways visualization skill test (MPVST) to gain greater insight into our students' abilities to comprehend the visual information presented in metabolic pathways diagrams. The test is able to discriminate students' visualization ability with respect to six specific visualization skills that we identified as key to the understanding of metabolic map diagrams. Application of the MPVST to B. S. Biochemistry students showed that their visualization skills develop informally and progressively during their college years. Furthermore, the complex nature of biochemical pathways, together with students' lack of familiarity with metabolic maps, suggests that it is important for instructors to spend more time than usual explaining visual representations to their students. © 2015 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 43(3):162–167, 2015.