The core principles ("big ideas") of physiology: Results of faculty surveys

Abstract

Physiology faculty members at a wide range of institutions (2-yr colleges to medical schools) were surveyed to determine what core principles of physiology they want their students to understand. From the results of the first survey, 15 core principles were described. In a second survey, respondents were asked to rank order these 15 core principles and, independently, to identify the three most important for their students to understand. The five most important core principles were "cell membrane," "homeostasis," "cell-to-cell communications," "interdependence," and "flow down gradients." We then "unpacked" the flow down gradients core principle into the component ideas of which it is comprised. This unpacking was sent to respondents who were asked to identify the importance of each of the component ideas. Respondents strongly agreed with the importance of the component ideas we had identified. We will be using the responses to our surveys as we begin the development of a conceptual assessment of physiology instrument (i.e., a concept inventory).

Full text

A Personal View
The core principles (“big ideas”) of physiology: results of faculty surveys
Joel Michael
1
and Jenny McFarland
2
1
Department of Molecular Biophysics and Physiology, Rush Medical College, Chicago, Illinois; and
2
Biology Department,
Edmonds Community College, Lynnwood, Washington
Submitted 12 January 2011; accepted in final form 15 August 2011
Michael J, McFarland J. The core principles (“big ideas”) of
physiology: results of faculty surveys. Adv Physiol Educ 35: 336 –
341, 2011; doi:10.1152/advan.00004.2011.—Physiology faculty
members at a wide range of institutions (2-yr colleges to medical
schools) were surveyed to determine what core principles of physiol-
ogy they want their students to understand. From the results of the first
survey, 15 core principles were described. In a second survey, respon-
dents were asked to rank order these 15 core principles and, indepen-
dently, to identify the three most important for their students to
understand. The five most important core principles were “cell mem-
brane,” “homeostasis,” “cell-to-cell communications,” “interdepen-
dence,” and “flow down gradients.” We then “unpacked” the flow
down gradients core principle into the component ideas of which it is
comprised. This unpacking was sent to respondents who were asked
to identify the importance of each of the component ideas. Respon-
dents strongly agreed with the importance of the component ideas we
had identified. We will be using the responses to our surveys as we
begin the development of a conceptual assessment of physiology
instrument (i.e., a concept inventory).
conceptual assessment; concept inventory
WHAT DO WE WANT physiology students to know and be able to
do? Two recent reports by national committees, Vision and
Change (1) and Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians
(2), point to the need for students, our future physicians,
scientists, and citizens, to understand and be able to use
disciplinary core principles and not just memorize facts, equa-
tions, and processes.
However, this requires that we identify the core principles of
physiology and that we develop assessments that will permit us
to determine whether students understand and can apply these
concepts. This article describes our efforts to involve a wide
variety of physiology faculty members in identifying core
principles in physiology. This is the first step in the develop-
ment of an instrument, a concept inventory, to assess the
conceptual understanding of physiological core principles.
Conceptual assessment is emerging as an important focus of
science education research (3, 6 –9, 11, 18, 19), and the
development of “concept inventories” is a critical component
of that work. Concept inventories are typically sets of multiple-
choice questions that assess the understanding of core princi-
ples (concepts), as opposed to testing memorization of facts or
ability to manipulate equations. The items that make up these
inventories are also able to diagnose common student miscon-
ceptions. These instruments can be used for the formative
assessment of student learning, for comparing different peda-
gogical approaches, and for program assessment. “Assess-
ments that are designed to diagnose students’ misconceptions
can be powerful educational tools” (10).
Our work was prompted by three National Science Founda-
tion-sponsored meetings on Conceptual Assessment in Biology
(CAB) in March 2007 (CAB I; Refs. 7, 13, and 19), January
2008 (CAB II; Ref. 14), and May 2010 (CAB III). The
participants at these meetings represented a broad range of
biological sciences from biochemistry and molecular biology
to physiology to ecology. After much discussion, there was
general agreement at CAB I that eight core principles (see
Table 1) were applicable to the biological sciences (13).
Michael et al. (15), building on the ideas set forth in the
first two CAB meetings (and previous work on core princi-
ples, big ideas, and general models specific to physiology;
Refs. 5 and 16) described nine core principles from the
perspective of four physiology faculty members (J. Michael,
H. Modell, J. McFarland, and W. Cliff) who teach physiol-
ogy to diverse groups of students at different educational
levels (two at medical schools, one at a liberal arts univer-
sity, and one at a public community college). However, it
appeared to us that these core principles differ considerably
in their applicability to the teaching of physiology, with
some seeming more important than others. Despite the
diversity of the four authors, we could not be sure that this
list included all the core principles that physiology faculty
members want their students to understand. It was also not
clear that our colleagues in the wider physiology teaching
community share our view of the relative importance of
each core principle.
Therefore, we (J. Michael and J. McFarland) sought to
determine what the community of physiology teachers thought
were the most important core principles of physiology by
asking them directly.
Survey Methods
Participation in the first survey was solicited by an e-mail
message posted to listservs sponsored by four different orga-
nizations: the Teaching Section of the American Physiological
Society, the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society, the
Northwest Biology Instructor’s Organization, and the Teaching
Commission of the International Union of Physiological Sci-
ences. Those individuals who agreed to participate were di-
rected to the URL of a web survey (SurveyMonkey.com). A
total of 81 physiology faculty responded to our solicitation to
participate. We do not know how many individuals subscribe
to each of the listservs (and individuals may subscribe to more
than one), nor do we know how many subscribers actually
read our message. Thus, it was not possible to determine the
response rate to our survey. However, the institutional and
geographic diversity of the 81 respondents suggests that we
Address for reprint requests and other correspondence: J. Michael, Dept. of
Molecular Biophysics and Physiology, Rush Medical College, 1750 W. Har-
rison St., Chicago, IL 60612 (e-mail: jmichael@rush.edu).
Adv Physiol Educ 35: 336–341, 2011;
doi:10.1152/advan.00004.2011.
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have obtained a useful sampling of our colleagues (see
Table 3).
The surveys were NOT anonymous. Respondents were
asked to identify the institutions at which they teach, the nature
of the program in which they teach, and their years of physi-
ology teaching experience. Respondents to the second and
third surveys were solicited by e-mail from the pool of respon-
dents to the first survey.
Surveys were held open for 1 mo. Upon closing each survey,
the accumulated results were downloaded into a spreadsheet
for analysis.
The second and third surveys used Likert scales to obtain
respondents’ opinions about a set of questions. The analysis of
data derived from Likert scales is a contentious issue (see Ref.
12 for a brief discussion of these issues). We simply calculated
aggregate scores (the sum of responses from all respondents)
by multiplying the ratings (values were 1–5) by the number of
respondents who selected that rating.
Surveys
The first survey. The purpose of the initial survey was to ask
our respondents to identify all of the core principles of phys-
iology that they thought were important. This survey, con-
ducted in November 2008, first offered respondents three
definitions of “core principles” or “big ideas,” which are
reproduced in Table 2 (the terms “big ideas” and “core prin-
ciples” are often used as synonyms). The survey then asked the
respondents to “describe the big ideas that you would want
your students to understand. You can write as much as you
want, but there is some virtue in brevity (as long as your ideas
are clear).” The survey allowed free text responses of any
length.
Eighty-one physiology faculty members teaching at a variety
of institutions (see Table 3) responded to this survey, and
seventy-three of these responses answered the question with
responses that could be interpreted as big ideas (some respon-
dents left this field blank or listed what were obviously lecture
titles or chapter headings). These 73 useable responses varied
in length from a few words to 286 words, and there were 7
responses in excess of 150 words.
Both authors independently read all surveys looking for
descriptions of ideas and themes (core principles) that occurred
in multiple responses. In the survey responses, some core
principles were stated or described explicitly using language
similar to that used in the CAB I report and frequently found
in textbooks (for example, “homeostasis,” “flow,” or “evolu-
tion” were words used in responses). In other cases, some
interpretation was needed to categorize a response. However,
we endeavored to keep our interpretations as conservative as
possible to avoid projecting our preconceived ideas into our
respondents’ replies.
For example, “Ohm’s law and its permutations,” “’stuff’
flows down a gradient,” “pressure-flow relationships,” and
similar survey responses were categorized as the core principle
“flow down gradient.”
On the other hand, extracting the core principle of “interde-
pendence” from the survey responses required rather more
interpretation. The following comments were received from
eight different faculty respondents and are reproduced here
exactly as worded:
•“Interrelatedness of the systems of the body”
•“Integration”
•“How does this (organ, system, etc) work with the other
(organ, system, etc)?”
•“All physiological systems are interdependent”
•“All systems are interconnected”
•“Connections between systems, how one aspect can affect
another”
Table 1. Core principles from the CAB I meeting
Casual mechanisms
Ecosystems and environments
Evolution
Homeostasis
Information flow
Matter/energy transfer and transformation
Structure-function relationships
The cell
CAB, Conceptual Assessment in Biology. See Ref. 13.
Table 2. Definitions of “big ideas” (core principles) included in first survey
From Duschl et al. (4):
“Each [big idea] is well tested, validated, and absolutely central to the discipline. Each integrates many different findings and has exceptionally broad
explanatory scope. Each is the source of coherence for many key concepts, principles and even other theories in the discipline.”
From Niemi and Phelan (17):
“. . . organized around central concepts or principles, or ‘big ideas.’ The nature of these concepts differs from domain to domain, but in general they are
abstract principles that can be used to organize broad areas of knowledge and make inferences in the domain, as well as determining strategies for
solving a wide range of problems.”
From Wiggins and McTighe (20):
“By definition, big ideas are important and enduring. Big ideas are transferable beyond the scope of a particular unit...Big ideas are the building material
of understanding. They can be thought of as the meaningful patterns that enable one to connect the dots of otherwise fragmented knowledge.”
Table 3. The faculty members responding to our
surveys teach physiology at a variety of different kinds of
academic institutions
First
Survey
Second
Survey
Third
Survey
Total number of respondents 81 61 37
Types of institutions represented*
A. 2-yr community college 24 17 11
B. 4-yr college granting only a BS/BA 5 5 1
C. 4-yr college or university granting a BS/BA
degree and some graduate degrees
23 19 9
D. Research university 17 14 7
E. Professional school (medical/dental/nursing) 29 21 10
*Some faculty members teach in more than one type of institution and were
therefore counted in more than one category.
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•“Interplay of organs and systems and how they affect each
other”
•“Systems are interdependent. Though we survey systems, it
is important to stress the interconnections and interactions
among systems”
Although we had not previously considered “interdependence”
as a core concept in physiology, this clearly emerged as a core
principle for many of the survey respondents.
Each author independently compiled a list of all of the core
principles they had extracted from the survey responses. Com-
parison of the lists from both authors revealed nearly complete
agreement between them. The authors easily arrived at a
consensus regarding the set of principles articulated by diverse
physiology faculty members (the survey respondents), and a
list of 15 core principles was compiled from the survey
responses. This list is shown in Table 4.
The list of core principles that physiology faculty members
(survey respondents) described overlapped significantly with
the list generated at the CAB I meeting (13) and with the list
described by Michael et al. (15). In Table 4, we indicated
which of the 15 core principles described by the survey
respondents are also on the lists developed at the CAB I
meeting (13) and which are similar to the general models
(recurring themes) identified by Modell (16). There were also
similarities to the list generated by Feder (5), whose approach
to the question of what physiology students should learn was
quite different. However, there were a number of proposed
core principles that were either not on the list from the CAB I
meeting or emerged in a different form, including “scientific
reasoning,” “cell membranes” (as a core principle separate
from “cells”), and “interdependence.”
The second survey. The purpose of the second survey was to
assess the relative importance attached to each of the 15 core
principles in physiology by the survey respondents. In the
second survey (conducted in March 2009), the respondents to
the first survey were asked to indicate their agreement with the
statement that “this core principle is important for my students
to understand” using a five-point Likert scale (where 1⫽
strongly disagree and 5⫽strongly agree). They were sepa-
rately asked to identify the three most important core principles
in the list of 15. [The survey prompt was as follows: “Below
are the 15 core principles we have been considering. Select the
three (3) that you believe to be the most important for your
students to understand by the end of your course.”] Responses
were obtained from 61 of the 81 respondents to the first survey.
The respondents to the second survey continued to be a diverse
group of faculty members teaching at different kinds of insti-
tutions (see Table 3).
The 61 responses to the second survey were analyzed, and
the resulting rank order of these 15 core principles derived
from the survey results is shown in Tables 4 and 5. Although
we had asked respondents to identify the top three core prin-
ciples, we have marked the top five core principles. We did this
for two reasons: 1) there was a tie for the top, most important,
core principle, and 2)no. 4, “interdependence,” is not as well
defined as the others, and it will, therefore, be hard to “unpack”
and assess this core principle. Table 5 shows the distribution of
responses among the five Likert ratings for each core principle.
Table 4. Core principles proposed by physiology faculty respondents
Core Principle Description Rank Top Five
Causality
1,3
Living organisms are causal mechanisms (machines) whose functions are explainable by a description of
the cause-and-effect relationships that are present.
14
Cell-cell communications
2
The function of the organism requires that cells pass information to one another to coordinate their
activities. These processes include endocrine and neural signaling.
3X
Cell membrane
2
Plasma membranes are complex structures that determine what substances enter or leave the cell. They
are essential for cell signaling, transport, and other processes.
1X
Cell theory
1,3
All cells making up the organism have the same DNA. Cells have many common functions but also many
specialized functions that are required by the organism.
9
Energy
1,3
The life of the organism requires the constant expenditure of energy. The acquisition, transformation, and
transportation of energy is a crucial function of the body.
6
Evolution
1,3
The mechanisms of evolution act at many levels of organization and result in adaptive changes that have
produced the extant relationships between structure and function.
15
Flow down gradients
2,3
The transport of “stuff” (ions, molecules, blood, and air) is a central process at all levels of organization
in the organism, and this transport is described by a simple model.
5X
Genes to proteins The genes (DNA) of every organism code for the synthesis of proteins (including enzymes). The
functions of every cell are determined by the genes that are expressed.
11
Homeostasis
1–3
The internal environment of the organism is actively maintained constant by the function of cells, tissues,
and organs organized in negative feedback systems.
1X
Interdependence Cells, tissues, organs, and organ systems interact with one another (are dependent on the function of one
another) to sustain life.
4X
Levels of organization
3
Understanding physiological functions requires understanding the behavior at every level of organization
from the molecular to the social.
12
Mass balance
2
The contents of any system or compartment in a system is determined by the inputs to and the outputs
from that system or compartment.
13
Physics/chemistry The functions of living organisms are explainable by the application of the laws of physics and chemistry. 10
Scientific reasoning Physiology is a science. Our understanding of the functions of the body arises from the application of the
scientific method; thus, our understanding is always tentative.
8
Structure/function
1,3
The function of a cell, tissue, or organ is determined by its form. Structure and function (from the
molecular level to the organ system level) are intrinsically related to each other.
7
Overlap of our core principles with those identified by others:
1
one of the big ideas identified at the CAB I meeting (13),
2
one of Modell’s general models
(16), or
3
one of the core principles detailed in Michael et al. (15).
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We also analyzed the responses to determine whether there
was a difference in the rank order proposed by faculty mem-
bers identifying themselves as teaching at 2-yr community
collegesand the other respondents teaching at 4-yr or graduate
institutions. Table 6 shows the rank order of the top seven core
principles. Although the absolute ordering was not identical,
there was no clear difference of opinion about what is impor-
tant for students to understand across the spectrum of faculty
members teaching at different kinds of educational institutions.
Every core principle that has been identified is a “big idea”
in that it encompasses many smaller component ideas. To be
useful in an educational context (i.e., teaching, learning, and
assessment), each of the core principles must be unpacked into
its component ideas. For example, “resistance” is an important
component idea within the core principle of “flow down
gradients.” Component ideas serve as vehicles for applying the
core principles to specific areas of physiology at appropriate
levels of complexity, thus matching expected learning out-
comes and assessments. We have begun the process of unpack-
ing the core principles by starting with one of the top five core
principles identified by our respondents.
We started with the core principle of “flow down gradients.”
We picked this core principle for two reasons. Like our
respondents, we deemed it to be an important core principle for
students to understand. We also thought that it would be easiest
of the five core principles for us to unpack. Our proposed
unpacking of “flow down gradients” is shown in Table 7.
The third survey. The purpose of the third survey was to
obtain feedback on our proposed unpacking of the “flow down
gradients” core principle. The respondents to the second survey
were contacted via e-mail and invited to participate in the third
survey. In the third survey (conducted in January 2010), we
asked respondents to indicate whether each of our proposed
component ideas that we had unpacked from the core principle
of “flow down gradients” was important for their students to
understand, again using a five-point Likert scale. We also
asked for suggestions, edits, and additions to the unpacking
(and we received several). Thirty-nine of the respondents to the
second survey responded to the third survey (see Table 3), but
only thirty-seven responses contained usable data.
The results (see Table 7) suggest that our unpacking of this
core principle is acceptable to the physiology faculty members
who responded to our surveys. Written comments were re-
Table 7. In the third survey, for each item below, we asked
faculty members to respond to the following question: “How
important is it that your students understand this?”
Flow Down Gradients
Sum of
Ratings*
I. Flow is the movement of “stuff” from one point in a system to
another point in the system. 174
A. Molecules and ions in solution move from one point to
somewhere else. 172
B. Fluids (blood and chyme) and gases (air) move from one
point to another. 154
C. Heat moves from one place to another. 131
II. Flow occurs because of the existence of an energy gradient
between two points in the system. 174
A. Differences in concentration (concentration gradients) cause
molecules and ions in solution to move toward a region of
lower concentration. 177
B. Differences in electrical potential (potential gradients) cause
ions in solution to move. 175
C. Differences in pressure (pressure gradients) between two
points in a system cause substances to move toward a
region of lower pressure. 173
D. Differences in temperature (temperature gradients) between
two points cause heat to flow. 148
III. The magnitude of the flow is a direct function of the
magnitude of the energy gradient that is present; the larger
the gradient, the greater the flow. 171
IV. More than one gradient may determine the magnitude and
direction of the flow. 167
A. Osmotic (concentration gradient) and hydrostatic pressures
together determine flow across capillary walls. 170
B. Concentration gradients and electrical gradients determine
ion flow through channels in cell membranes of neurons
and muscle cells. 171
V. There is resistance or opposition to flow in all systems. 165
A. Resistance and flow are reciprocally related; the greater the
resistance, the smaller the flow. 165
B. Resistance is determined by the physical properties of a
system. 159
C. Some resistances are variable and can be actively controlled. 163
i. Ion channels in a membrane can open and close
(increasing resistance). 168
ii. Arterioles and bronchioles can constrict and dilate. 171
iii. Piloerection can increase the resistance to heat flow in
many mammals. 111
*The number of responses was 37; hence, the maximum possible sum was
185.
Table 5. Distribution of Likert ratings for each of the 15
core principles
Core Principle Rank Top 5
Score
12345
Cell membrane 1 X 0 1 2 10 48
Homeostasis 1 X 2 0 1 7 51
Cell-cell communications 3 X 0 0 3 16 42
Interdependence 4 X 0 2 5 14 40
Flow down gradients 5 X 1 1 3 19 37
Energy 6 0 2 7 17 35
Structure/function 7 3 1 4 20 33
Scientific reasoning 8 0 6 7 19 29
Cell theory 9 2 5 11 13 30
Physics/chemistry 10 1 3 16 21 20
Genes to proteins 11 2 6 12 15 26
Levels of organization 12 1 3 16 21 20
Mass balance 13 0 11 15 15 20
Causality 14 3 12 10 17 19
Evolution 15 9 8 18 9 17
Scores were as follows: 1⫽strongly disagree and 5⫽strongly agree.
Table 6. Comparison of the rankings of core principles by
community college faculty members and all other
faculty members
Core Principle Ranking Core Principle Ranking
Community college faculty
members
All other faculty members
Homeostasis 1 Cell membrane 1
Interdependence 2 Homeostasis 2
Cell-cell communications 2 Flow down gradients 3
Cell membrane 3 Cell-cell communications 3
Flow down gradients 4 Interdependence 4
Energy 4 Energy 5
Cell theory 4 Scientific reasoning 6
n⫽17 community college faculty members and 44 faculty members from
all other institutions.
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ceived from 30 of the 39 respondents. These comments were
universally supportive of our unpacking; some contained minor
suggestions for rewording, but the respondents did not suggest
substantial changes our proposed unpacking. It is clear, how-
ever, that a few of the unpacked ideas, particularly those
related to flow of heat down a temperature gradient, were not
important to as many respondents as most of the others.
Discussion
We surveyed faculty members who teach physiology at a
variety of 2- and 4-yr colleges, universities, and medical
schools (Table 3) to determine their views about the core
principles of physiology they want their students to understand
(Table 4). We determined the relative importance of these core
principles (Tables 4 and 5) to these survey respondents. We
compared the rankings produced by community college faculty
members to those produced by all other faculty members
(Table 6). Finally, we unpacked one of the core principles
thought to be most important into its component ideas and
solicited ratings of the importance of these component ideas
(Table 7).
We invited participation in this project using four different
listservs to which physiology faculty members subscribe and
on which many faculty members actively participate in discus-
sions. We were gratified by, and indebted to, the many col-
leagues who responded to our request for participation. The
diversity of this group makes us reasonably confident that our
results reflect the thinking of the broader community of phys-
iology faculty members.
There was considerable agreement among faculty members
at different types of educational institutions about the most
important core principles; comparing the responses from 2-yr
college faculty and all others revealed no obvious meaningful
differences. In addition, of the 81 responses to the first survey,
there were 10 from institutions in foreign countries (England,
Canada, The Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Brazil, and Aus-
tralia). The diversity of the faculty members responding to our
surveys and the high levels of agreement in their responses
support our hypothesis that there is a set of core principles that
can be viewed as being central to the discipline of physiology
and thus important for students to understand.
It was important for us to complete this survey before the
Michael et al. report (15) was available to readers, so that this
report would not influence the respondents to the survey. The
CAB I list was already published (13), however, and this could
have had an influence on some of the survey respondents, and
although we attempted to be conservative in interpreting re-
sponses, our previous work and biases could have influenced
our analysis.
There are several aspects of the responses we received from
our respondents that deserve further comment. First, the core
principles generated by physiology faculty members were very
similar to those generated by a group of biologists from diverse
subdisciplines (see the CAB I information shown in Table 4).
It appears that there are similar core principles of physiology as
a discipline that are obvious to physiologists. This consistency
is important because it suggests that the results of this work
will be applicable across a broad spectrum of physiology
courses in different institutions.
Second, it was equally noteworthy that our respondents
described a core principle that had not appeared on the lists
generated at the CAB I meeting. “Interdependence” was a core
principle mentioned by many respondents. Respondents re-
ferred to two similar but overlapping ideas: 1) “vertical inter-
dependence” or understating that any physiological function
requires understanding processes occurring at many differ-
ent levels of organization and 2) “horizontal interdepen-
dence,” meaning that the organ systems that are described in
separate chapters in our textbooks must work together to
sustain the life of the organism. We argue that both aspects
of this core principle reflect an important agenda of most
physiology teachers, namely, that students learn to think
deeply and broadly “outside the box” of the individual
chapters of their textbooks.
Third, it is also interesting that the core principle “infor-
mation”articulated by the CAB I participants was expressed
by our respondents as two different core principles: “cell-
cell communications” and “genes to proteins.” Here, too, we
argue that this reflects a pragmatic teaching issue related to
the sequence of topics that are taught in a physiology course
(and there is always a sequence of some kind); textbooks
cover the information involved in the transmission of ge-
netic information and the development of cells in one
chapter or section and deal with information processing in
the nervous system or endocrine system in different chapters
or sections.
Fourth, it is clear from an examination of the list of core
concepts (Table 4) that many of the concepts overlap with
other concepts in important ways. For example, the concept of
homeostasis clearly overlaps with the concept of cell-cell
communications, since the mechanisms by which homeostasis
are produced are dependent on the processing of neural and/or
endocrine information.
Finally, it is important to recognize that our attempt to
identify core principles and to unpack them into their compo-
nent parts is a pragmatic one intended to permit us to develop
an instrument for conceptual assessment for physiology, i.e., a
physiology concept inventory, to join with a growing group of
biology concept inventories (3).
Working with a team of other physiology faculty members,
we are beginning the process of writing questions for flow
down gradients that address some of the component ideas
from the unpacking process. Our goal is to unpack the next
three core principles (“homeostasis,” “cell-cell communica-
tion,” and “cell membranes”) and to assemble a concept
inventory for four of the top five core principles in physi-
ology in the next 2 yr.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank the many survey participants for their time and com-
ments.
DISCLOSURES
No conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise, are declared by the author(s).
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