In the era defined by the fourth paradigm of science research, the burgeoning volume of science data poses a formidable challenge. The established data-related requisites within science literacy now fall short of addressing the evolving needs of researchers and STEM students. Consequently, the emergence of science data literacy becomes imperative.…

All students pursuing STEM careers need to be adept at interpreting and evaluating primary research literature. The complexity of research articles requires significant practice and training in order to become skilled and efficient at this process. Thus, an early start in undergraduate education is essential and allows for development and practice…

The use of primary literature can be an effective way to expose students to the scientific research process. At the same time, primary literature can be intimidating to many students, particularly those with limited exposure to science research. The CREATE (consider, read, elucidate hypotheses, analyze and interpret the data, and think of the next…

Several Nature of Science (NOS) studies have been conducted on different categories of professionals and different age groups. Even though NOS is considered a structural facet of scientific literacy, not much research has been conducted on the NOS ideas of scientists and science professionals. This crosssectional study investigated the nature of…

Primary Scientific Literature (PSL) has been used in undergraduate classrooms as a way to engage students with the research process and to increase science literacy. Most curricula lack any formal training for undergraduates to critically read PSL even though most undergraduate science courses require students to engage with PSL at some level. In…

Trust in science is indispensable and very important for the development of global health, and can certainly be gained by developing the scientific literacy of the whole population. The article presents various definitions of scientific literacy and seeks its connections to science education. It further explores the progress in developing…

Course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) exposes an entire class of students to scientific research and is thought to increase students' knowledge retention in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. Microbial engineering is an interdisciplinary subject that combines science and engineering. We transformed a…

Compelling and interesting introductions are considered an important way of fostering reader engagement with expository-text content. But only a handful of projects have examined this prescriptive advice. In three experiments, we examined the effects of two different genres of introductions--narrative and expository--on comprehension and memory…

COVID-19 public health measures have forced educators to adapt their courses to an online or hybrid presentation format with laboratory components facing particular challenges. We surmised that having introductory organic chemistry students orally present selected faculty literature publications would provide a flexible alternative to our final…

Background: Continuous calls for reform in science education emphasize the need to provide science experiences in lower-division courses to improve the retention of STEM majors and to develop science literacy and STEM skills for all students. Open or authentic inquiry and undergraduate research are effective science experiences leading to multiple…

Student engagement in the analysis of primary scientific literature increases critical thinking, scientific literacy, data evaluation, and science process skills. However, little is known about the process by which expertise in reading scientific articles develops. For this reason, we decided to compare how faculty experts and student novices…

News media reports of scientific discoveries are often oversimplified, lacking nuance and context. As a result, citizens need both science literacy and information literacy skills to both decode the science content in a media report and track down the original scientific literature that prompted the media report. This article evaluates the…

We are examining the impact of a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) at a land-grant, Hispanic-serving institution in the southwestern United States. Students in our CURE completed one or two extended research projects over a single semester. Our CURE enrolled a high proportion of underrepresented minority students (70.3%),…

One of the well-accepted ways of introducing undergraduates to the method of scientific inquiry is to introduce them to primary literature. A matter of concern is that undergraduate students of Indian universities are generally not trained to read primary literature. We combined traditional teaching and student-centered approach in a 3-day module…

We investigated strategies used by readers when reading a science article with a diagram and assessed whether semantic and spatial representations were constructed while reading the diagram. Seventy-one undergraduate participants read a scientific article while tracking their eye movements and then completed a reading comprehension test. Our…