Articles Self or Help? A COMPARISON OF A PERSONALIZED SYSTEM OF INSTRUCTION BIOCHEMISTRY CLASS TO A STANDARD LECTURE-BASED BIOCHEMISTRY CLASS Received for publication, April 24, 2003, and in revised form, June 3, 2003 Karen Ocorr‡ and Marcy P. Osgood§¶ From the ‡Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, and the §Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131-0001 For the past eight years the University of Michigan has offered two different styles of biochemistry courses each semester, one a standard lecture-based and discussion-section (SLB) course and one a self-paced, non-lecture Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) course. We tracked student responses to selected exam questions that were used in both courses for three semesters. Data on student grade point average, student satisfaction, and perceived effort in the courses were also gathered. In two of the three semesters that we monitored students there were no significant differences in performance on test questions between the two courses. In one of the three semesters there was a small but nevertheless significant difference between the two courses with junior and senior PSI students outperforming their SLB counterparts by 10 points. Student grade point average, overall satisfaction, and perceived effort were similar for both courses. Our study indicated that the PSI format works as well as the SLB model does for students in biochemistry and may be especially beneficial for more experienced students. Keywords: Personalized System of Instruction, course design. For students who have struggled with the relevance of organic chemistry or for those who have enjoyed descrip- tive biology and seek more mechanistic explanations, bio- chemistry is an integrating and ultimately satisfying para- digm. It is usually presented to students at a time in their college careers when they have reached a certain level of maturity, learned some self-discipline and time-manage- ment skills, and attained some capacity to integrate new information into their previously acquired science knowl- edge base. It is also a course that many students must take either for undergraduate degree requirements or for graduate/professional school entrance requirements. At the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (U of M), 1 which graduates 400 biology majors per year, one semester of biochemistry is required for a B.S. degree in Biology. Be- cause most medical and dental schools require that their applicants have at least one undergraduate course in bio- chemistry, additional students representing diverse majors enroll in the biochemistry classes offered. To accommodate this demand, U of M has for the past eight years offered two different styles of biochemistry courses each semester, one a standard lecture-based and discussion-section (SLB) course and one a self-paced, non-lecture Personalized Sys- tem of Instruction (PSI) format [1]. Total enrollment in these two classes has been 400 –700 students per academic year. Despite the different formats, the courses are very sim- ilar in many ways. The same text and study guide are used, the same topics and volume of material are covered, and for the majority of semesters that the two courses have been offered, the average final grades have been very similar. Because of these similarities, we thought that a comparison between the two different styles of courses might provide answers to some of the following questions. Do students in both courses receive the same quality of biochemistry education? Is one format better for certain groups of students? Are we (as a biology faculty) counsel- ing students correctly when advising them which bio- chemistry course to take, based upon their individual learning styles and levels of maturity? To address these questions, we maintained student records for two semesters on the biochemistry course taken, year in school, and overall GPA. We tracked indi- vidual student responses to selected exam questions that were used in both courses. Data on student satisfaction and perceived effort in the courses were also gathered. STUDY DESIGN AND RESULTS Course Descriptions—One of the introductory biochemistry courses, Biology 310, is a standard lecture-based and discus- ¶ To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mosgood@salud.unm.edu. 1 The abbreviations used are: U of M, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; GPA, grade point average; PSI, Personalized System of Instruction (course); SLB, standard lecture-based and discus- sion-section (course); HbF, fetal hemoglobin; AY, academic year; CRLT, Center for Research on Learning and Teaching; LD, lec- ture-discussion; IS, independent study curriculum; PBL, prob- lem-based learning. © 2003 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY EDUCATION Printed in U.S.A. Vol. 31, No. 5, pp. 308 –312, 2003 This paper is available on line at http://www.bambed.org 308