Chris Shelley, Neuroscience
Following our successful application for a Department and Program Enhancement Grant from the CfT, the primary Neuroscience faculty of Chris Shelley, Kate Cammack, and Thomas Reppert met from 9 am to 4 pm on May 21st. The aim of the meeting was to redesign the neuroscience comprehensive exam and evaluate our major assessment data. The main reasons for the comp redesign that the current comp is based on our 200-level course and we have recently restructured the major (reducing the number of 2XX course from three to two), and the increasing abilities of AI to answer our comp-style questions that involve analyzing primary research literature.
We began by examining examples that highlighted the need to update the comp format in light of the growing abilities of AI. We examined the responses that the website ChatPDF gave to all of our comp exam questions. This is a website which allows you to easily upload a pdf of a research article and then receive AI-generated answers to questions about the article. Although we all agreed that the answers were not perfect, in many cases they would have been of sufficient quality to pass the pass/fail comprehensive exam, especially if students would have had time to edit and modify their responses as coursework.
The neuroscience comp has evolved over time, in part due to the logistics of increasing numbers of majors (2019 had two majors, 2024 had eighteen majors) and in part by trying out different formats and timings. We reviewed how the neuroscience comp had changed since the major was introduced in 2019. In the first comp, students had to write a mock grant proposal. In later comps students needed to analyze tow primary research papers out of a choice of three (based on the three 200-level course) and then answer short essay-style questions in the first Easter comp. period either in exam conditions (2020 and 2021) or as coursework (2022 – 2024). The questions were given to the students either in the exam (2020), at the start of the first Easter comp. period (2021), or during the last Advent comp. period (2022 – 2024). We agreed that in light of AI and the restructured major that changes have to be made to the comp.
We next reviewed the goals of the comps as detailed in the CfT application, our major’s learning objectives, and the rubric for the 2024 comps. One thing that we felt was not being emphasized enough in the comps, and is a key goal, is the connections we would like students to make with material across NEUR courses and their own personal scientific narrative throughout their major. We then reviewed the comps exam format in Biology, Psychology, and Biochemistry and the capstone course guidelines of the Environment and Sustainability major and the College of Wooster’s capstone research course. Across these areas, tools such as multiple-choice questions (MCQs), analysis of research papers, short answer questions, essays, and mock grant proposals are all used. We also realized that we did not have any information on the comps in either Chemistry or Computer Science (majors with close overlap with Neuroscience) and so will find out how these programs structure their comps.
We spent the rest of the meeting brainstorming potential comprehensive exam formats and methods of delivery, and linking these to our major’s learning objectives (below):
- Personal statement / articulation of interests
- Basic Neuro content, Qs
- Being able to articulate why specific data is relevant to neuroscience/society
- Providing an explicit way to connect ideas across several courses in the neuroscience curriculum / integration of concepts from multiple sub-disciplines
- Describe and explain one piece of content at level of NEUR101, NEUR2XX, NEUR 3XX, NEUR4XX.
- Facility in working with key concepts in scientific papers
- Coming up with their own experiment that’s reasonable/plausible
- Critiquing data. Supporting/refuting hypotheses with data
- Explain a concept at various levels of depth to a non-NEUR major
- Authentic approach – different audiences/formats
- Responding to questions in an oral examination format
- Students write and answer their own comp Qs.
- Collecting a data set and interpreting those data in the context of a developed working hypothesis
- Produce a product that’s relevant to their interests/skills/paths as they move forward
After discussing the above ideas, we settled on a new three-part comp that we believe covers the four learning objectives of the major (LO1 Demonstrate knowledge of basic concepts in neuroscience, LO2 Demonstrate the ability to think critically and integratively, LO3 Develop and apply scientific inquiry & research skills, LO4 Develop and apply effective communication skills).
Part I: Basic knowledge test. In person short answer/MCQ basic neuroscience content questions. The content will be based on material from NEUR101 that students will have also revisited in the 200-level NEUR courses. Tests LO1 and LO2.
Part II: Research paper critique. In person exam, in which students will pick one of two papers, and the questions will be less focused on basic knowledge and more focused on experimental rationale, data interpretation, and future directions in terms of future experiments or the societal/scientific importance of the research. Tests LO2 and LO3.
Part III: Metacognitive integration. Pre-recorded video submission with the emphasis on oral content rather than video production skills with no graphics or slides to be used. The content will be based on describing how their major courses contributed to their choice of paper in Part II. Tests LO1 and LO4.
We set ourselves the task of thinking potential logistical, equity and accessibility issues that may arise from the above format, and to develop student guidelines for each part, and example questions, and to have these in place before the start of the Advent 2024 semester.