DECREASING COURSE CONTENT IMPROVES STUDENT COMPREHENSION OF SCIENCE AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS SCIENCE IN FRESHMAN BIOLOGY

This study demonstrates a small, but significant, difference in prior understanding of basic biological concepts between students enrolled i n majors' versus nonmajors' introductory biology courses. By the end o f their respective courses, nonmajors demonstrated greater improvement in posttest scores than did majors. Furthermore, although initially s tudents in the major course had a significantly more positive attitude towards science, especially in terms of personal comfort with science , by the end of the course this difference disappears. Following a sem ester of instruction, the attitudes of nonmajors generally improved, b ut student attitudes in the majors' classes declined in nearly all cat egories. We demonstrate a significant instructor effect in these resul ts.