Current trends of community college lab curricula in biology: an analysis of inquiry, technology, and content

We examined science inquiry, technology, and content in laboratory curricula of first-semester, general biology at six randomly selected community colleges in Colorado, USA. We derived a seven-point scale to assess science inquiry. For each exercise, we recorded the technology used, the biological principle examined, and whether the lab was derived from a commercial manual or a manual generated by the institution. Results showed that lab curricula at all six schools addressed an average of less than three categories of science inquiry. The main deficiencies were in deriving problems/hypotheses, variables, methods, and extensions. Labs implementing technology addressed significantly fewer categories of inquiry than those without technology. Microscopes were the most common source of technology, but were used almost exclusively for observations of teacher-determined objects, rather than as tools to increase the number of categories of science inquiry addressed. Labs from commercial manuals allowed students to address significantly more categories of science inquiry than labs from manuals generated by the institution. We suggest that educators evaluate inquiry in their labs with an inventory such as the one derived in this paper, and attempt to address the seven categories of science inquiry several times in each lab course.