CLASS (Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey)

CLASS

(Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey)

Please read the following consent document before proceeding with the survey below.
Pressing submit at the end of this survey signals your consent.

INFORMED CONSENT DOCUMENT
You are invited to participate in a research project to improve the learning and appreciation of science with the use of technology. This project is conducted under the direction of Dr. Carl Wieman, Distinguished Professor of Physics, JILA Box 440, University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309 (303-492-7746). Other investigators include Dr. Noah Finkelstein, Dr. Michael Dubson (303-492-4938), Dr. Steven Pollock (303-492-2495), Dr. Kathy Perkins (303-492-4367), Dr. Sarah McKagan (303-492-7815) , Dr. Linda Koch (303-492-7815), Dr. Jennifer Knight, Wendy Adams (303-735-0627), Noah Podolefsky, Patrick Kohl, Chris Keller, Kara Gray, Danielle Harlow (303-492-4331), Aaron Svoboda, Elias Quinn, Jack Barbera, Mindy Gratny, Sarah Kennedy, Françoise Benay, Laurie Langdon, Andrea Bair, Jia Shi, Jennifer Stempien, and others of the Physics, Chemistry, and Biology Departments at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Campus Box 390, Boulder, Colorado, 80309. The purpose of this project is to investigate the relationship between students’ beliefs about science and their success in science courses as part of evaluating the use of PhET (interactive JAVA simulations) learning tools and other presentations of science materials in science courses. You are being asked to respond to a survey with a background questionnaire. You can complete the survey on the web at your convenience. The survey will take about 10 minutes of your time. The background questionnaire will take approximately 2 minutes. You might be asked to complete this survey again, at the end of term. Your answers on this survey will not affect your course grade and will not count towards your final grade in this class. Class instructors who are members of the research group (listed above) will not have access to individual survey responses until after the course has been completed and final grades submitted. All other class instructors will never have access to individual responses; they will only receive information on who participated and the results for the class as a whole – that is results with no identifying information about individuals. If your professor is offering course credit or other incentive in return for participating in this research, you may collect this credit without participating by simply submitting the survey uncompleted (with only name and ID filled in). In addition, your individual privacy will be maintained in all published and written data resulting from this study. You will be asked to include your name and the last six digits of your Student ID number. Identifying information (name, ID) will only be used to combine the survey answers and the coursework data and will be deleted prior to any subsequent analysis. At the end of the survey, you will be asked explicitly for permission to obtain and use your course grades, test and homework scores, attendance records, and GPA for this research to improve this and other courses in science. If you provide permission, no one except the researchers will have access to your identity. The researchers will score your survey and record these scores in an excel spreadsheet. Any written or printed out materials with identifiable information will be stored in a locked filing cabinet. The excel spreadsheet will be stored on password protected computers. At the end of the project the materials will be stored for a period of 3 years and then destroyed. No individual student identifiers will be used in any published or publicly presented work. Participation is entirely voluntary. You have the right to withdraw your consent or discontinue participation at any time. You have the right to refuse to answer any question(s) for any reason. The risks to you are minimal since this survey can in no way impact your course grade, and any incentive credit can be obtained without participation. The benefits to you are indirect and uncertain, as information from this research and evaluation will contribute to the ongoing changes being made to the PhET simulations and possibly to changes in science instruction in general. If you have any questions regarding your rights as a research subject, any concerns regarding this project, or any dissatisfaction with any aspect of this study you may report them, confidentially if you wish, to the Executive Secretary, Human Research Committee, University of Colorado, Graduate School, Campus Box 26, Regent 308, Boulder, Colorado 80309 or by telephone to (303) 492-7401. Copies of the University of Colorado Assurance of Compliance to the federal government regarding human subject research are available upon request from the graduate school at the address listed above. In addition, research personnel will be happy to answer any questions you may have about this evaluation. Your agreement to participate is indicated by completing and submitting this survey. Your signature is not required on any document. Submitting this survey incomplete (with name and ID only) will allow you to receive credit without any agreement to participate in research activities.

IMPORTANT: SURVEY TEMPORARILY NOT WORKING, PLEASE DO NOT FILL OUT.

BIO 120 Students

Please enter your name (Last, First):
Please enter the last 6 digits of your student ID number:

Introduction

Here are a number of statements that may or may not describe your beliefs about learning biology. You are asked to rate each statement by selecting a number between 1 and 5 where the numbers mean the following:

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree

Choose one of the above five choices that best expresses your feeling about the statement. If you don't understand a statement, leave it blank. If you have no strong opinion, choose 3.

We are asking that you express your own beliefs. Your answers will not affect your grade. Your instructor will never see your individual answers, only whether you participated and the class results as a whole. This information will be very helpful to us in an effort to design more effective biology courses.

Survey (8-10 minutes)

My curiosity about the living world led me to study biology

Strongly Disagree	1	2	3	4	5	Strongly Agree
											not answered

I think about the biology I experience in everyday life.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
After I study a topic in biology and feel that I understand it, I have difficulty applying that information to answer questions on the same topic.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
Knowledge in biology consists of many disconnected topics.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
When I am answering a biology question, I find it difficult to put what I know into my own words.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
I do not expect the rules of biological principles to help my understanding of the ideas.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
To understand biology, I sometimes think about my personal experiences and relate them to the topic being analyzed.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
If I get stuck on answering a biology question on my first try, I usually try to figure out a different way that works.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
I want to study biology because I want to make a contribution to society.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
If I don’t remember a particular approach needed for a question on an exam, there’s nothing much I can do (legally!) to come up with it.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
If I want to apply a method or idea used for understanding one biological problem to another problem, the problems must involve very similar situations.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
I enjoy figuring out answers to biology questions.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
It is important for the government to approve new scientific ideas before they can be widely accepted.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
Learning biology changes my ideas about how the natural world works.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
To learn biology, I only need to memorize facts and definitions.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
Reasoning skills used to understand biology can be helpful to my everyday life.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
It is a valuable use of my time to study the fundamental experiments behind biological ideas.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
If I had plenty of time, I would take a biology class outside of my major requirements just for fun.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
The subject of biology has little relation to what I experience in the real world.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
There are times I think about or solve a biology question in more than one way to help my understanding.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
If I get stuck on a biology question, there is no chance I'll figure it out on my own.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
When studying biology, I relate the important information to what I already know rather than just memorizing it the way it is presented.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
There is usually only one correct approach to solving a biology problem.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
When I am not pressed for time, I will continue to work on a biology problem until I understand why something works the way it does.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
Learning biology that is not directly relevant to or applicable to human health is not worth my time.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
Mathematical skills are important for understanding biology.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
I enjoy explaining biological ideas that I learn about to my friends.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
We use this statement to discard the survey of people who are not reading the questions. Please select agree (not strongly agree) for this question to preserve your answers.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
The general public misunderstands many biological ideas.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
I do not spend more than a few minutes stuck on a biology question before giving up or seeking help from someone else.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
Biological principles are just to be memorized.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered
For me, biology is primarily about learning known facts as opposed to investigating the unknown.

Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree

not answered

Background Questions (3-4 minutes)

I am a?
How old are you?
What is your gender?
What is your race/ethnicity (select the one with which you most identify)?
What is your current declared major?
If you plan to change your major, please choose the major you intend to switch to.

Currently, what is your level of interest in biology?

	Very Low	Low	Moderate	High	Very High
										not answered

Why?

Do your future plans include ...

biology related grad school?	yes	no
medical school?	yes	no
pursue a career in the medical field, but not medical school?	yes	no
teaching K-12 science?	yes	no
pharmacy school?	yes	no
Other	Specify

We thank you for taking the time to fill out this survey. Your participation is really helpful because knowing more about students' beliefs about biology helps improve our teaching practices.

I ... agree ... do not agree ... to permit the investigators to obtain and use my course grades, attendance records, and GPA for this research to improve this and other courses in science. This information will be seen only by the researchers. Identifying information (name, ID) will only be used to combine these survey answers and the coursework data and will be deleted prior to any subsequent analysis.

By pressing submit you are agreeing to participate in this research project as outlined in the "Informed Consent Document" above.
If you do not want to participate, simply do not answer the questions and submit only your name and ID.
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