Research

My research covers topics such as:

Testing scientific practices in undergraduate biology courses

Test-taking motivation on biology concept assessments

Visual literacy in molecular biology

What is visual literacy?

Visual literacy is the ability to "read" and "write" using the conventions in visual representations.

I used the DNA Landscape as a framework to study how students are using visual literacy skills to interpret and draw different representations of DNA.

DNA is both very small in size and very large in the sheer number of nucleotides, so scale can be a tricky concept in molecular biology.

Read how students think about scale in our paper: "Sketchy understandings: Drawings reveal where students may need additional support to understand scale and abstraction in common representations of DNA"

What does that X-shape mean? The abstract ways that biologists represent chromosomes can be a source of confusion for students.

Learn more about this chromosome confusion in our paper: "Probing visual literacy skills reveals unexpected student conceptions of chromosomes"

Hear me talk about my work on visual literacy in biology in this short documentary about STEM Education Research at RIT.

This documentary was created by the talented undergraduate student Jupiter Chen.

Testing scientific practices in undergraduate biology courses

What are scientific practices?

Scientific practices are the skills used to develop scientific knowledge and are essential for careers in science. Scientific practices are one of the key dimensions of the National Research Council's three-dimensional framework for science education.

We want biology students to use scientific practices in order to develop as scientists, yet my research suggests that scientific practices are rarely assessed on biology exams.

In a nationwide sample of introductory biology exams, we found that only 7% of items aligned to a scientific practice.

Read about testing scientific practices in "Undergraduate biology lecture courses predominantly test facts about science rather than scientific practices"

We re-analyzed our data on scientific practices to better uncover variation in how instructors are incorporating scientific practices to their exams.

Learn more about this work in "Identifying factors associated with instructor implementation of three-dimensional assessment in undergraduate biology courses"

Watch the video for a quick summary of this research!

Test-taking motivation on biology concept assessments

Why study test-taking motivation?

Test-taking motivation affects how students behave when completing a test.

Students may behave differently when taking a test depending on how the test is graded and whether the test is proctored. In certain conditions, students may be more likely to rush through a test or to seek out the test answers. The motivation that drives different test-taking behaviors should be considered when interpreting what test scores "mean."

My research provides recommendations for how test scores should be interpreted in light of test-taking motivation in different testing conditions.

Students had higher scores on a biology concept assessment when they completed it in a high-stakes out-of-class setting, suggesting these scores may not accurately represent what students know.

Read more about this research in "How administration stakes and settings affect student behavior and performance on a biology concept assessment"

Test-taking motivation can be measured through self-reported measures, the amount of time spent on the entire test, and the amount of rapid-selection behavior used. We provide recommendations for identifying and filtering out data from students with low test-taking motivation so that the scores from the filtered data set better represent student understanding.

Learn more in "GenBio-MAPS as a case study to understand and address the effects of test-taking motivation in low-stakes program assessments"

Watch the video for a quick summary of this research!

Mentored Research Projects

Shreya Sujith and Aneesh Nallani

Uminski, C., Sujith, S., Nallani, A., Armpriest, B., Wright, L. K., Newman, D. L. & Yang, M. (under review). Showing the bonds of ATP — A subtle but important difference in figure design that may alleviate student confusion about ATP hydrolysis.

Sujith, S., Nallani, A., Uminski, C., Newman, D. L., & Wright, L. K. Investigating student conceptions of ATP hydrolysis. Georgia Gosnell Seminar Series. April 24, 2024. Rochester Institute of Technology. Short talk presentation.

Nallani, A., Sujith, S., Yang, M., Armpriest, B., Uminski, C., Newman, D. L., & Wright, L. K. Investigating student conceptions of ATP hydrolysis. SABER East. May 31, 2024. Rochester Institute of Technology. Poster presentation.

NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates cohort

Noah Courtney, Annabelle Li, Meredith Michetti, Tecora Tisdale

Courtney, N., Uminski, C., Couch, B. A., Newman, D. L., & Wright, L. K. Looking deeper: Examining the use of DNA representations on biology exams. RIT Undergraduate Research Symposium. August 1, 2024. Rochester Institute of Technology. Short talk presentation.

Li, A., Cammarota, C., Uminski, C., Newman, D. L., & Wright, L. K. Probing students’ understanding of genetics using a card-choosing task. RIT Undergraduate Research Symposium. August 1, 2024. Rochester Institute of Technology. Short talk presentation.

Michetti, M., Cammarota, C., Uminski, C., Newman, D. L., & Wright, L. K. Students struggle to connect genetics concepts: Punnett squares are deceptively simple. RIT Undergraduate Research Symposium. August 1, 2024. Rochester Institute of Technology. Short talk presentation.

Tisdale, T., Uminski, C., Cammarota, C., Osterhage, O., Newman, D. L., & Wright, L. K. A characterization of biology students’ drawings for exam preparation. RIT Undergraduate Research Symposium. August 1, 2024. Rochester Institute of Technology. Short talk presentation.

Kerstyn Gay

Gay, K., Uminski, C., Newman, D. L., & Wright, L. K. DNA Landscape: An interactive webpage. ImagineRIT. April 27, 2024. Rochester Institute of Technology. Poster presentation.

Siddharth Menon

Menon, S., Chen, J., Chrisbacher, K., Uminski, C., Newman, D. L., & Wright, L. K. Twisted Ladder: A game to learn about DNA representations. ImagineRIT. April 27, 2024. Rochester Institute of Technology. Poster presentation.

Sara Burbach

Uminski, C., Burbach, S. M., & Couch, B. A. (2024). Undergraduate biology lecture courses predominantly test facts about science rather than scientific practices. CBE – Life Sciences Education, 23 (2), ar19. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.23-12-0244

Karli Workman

Workman, K., Uminski, C., & Couch, B. A. What introductory biology faculty report about teaching practices does not always align with grade weight in their syllabi. School of Biological Sciences Undergraduate Research Symposium. April 12, 2022. University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Poster presentation.

My very helpful research partner.

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