UNDERGRADUATES' UNDERSTANDING OF CARDIOVASCULAR PHENOMENA. Joel A. Michael¹, Mary Pat Wenderoth², Harold I. Modell³, William Cliff⁴, Barbara Horwitz⁵, Philip McHale⁶, Daniel Richardson⁷, Dee Silverthorn⁸, Stephen Williams⁹ and Shirley Whitescarver¹⁰. ¹Department of Molecular Biophysics and Physiology, Rush Medical College, Chicago, IL 60612, ²Zoology Department, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, ³National Resource for Computers in Life Science Education, Seattle, WA 98115, ⁴Department of Biology, Niagara University, Niagara University, NY 14109, ⁵Section of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior, University of California at Davis, Davis, CA 95616, ⁶Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, Oklahoma City, OK 73190, ⁷Department of Physiology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40536, ⁸Section of Neurobiology, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712, ⁹Department of Biology, Glendale Community College, Glendale, AZ 85302, ¹⁰Biological Science and Nursing, Lexington Community College, Lexington, KY 40506.

    Undergraduate students in 12 courses at 8 different institutions were surveyed to determine the prevalence of 13 different misconceptions (conceptual difficulties) about cardiovascular function.  The prevalence of these misconceptions ranged from 20 to 81% and, for each misconception, was consistent across the different student populations.  We also obtained explanations for the students' answers either as free responses or with follow-up multiple-choice questions.  These results suggest that students have a number of underlying conceptual difficulties about cardiovascular phenomena.  One possible source of some misconceptions is the students' inability to apply simple general models to specific cardiovascular phenomena.  Some implications of these results for teachers of physiology are discussed.

Adv. Physiol. Educ., 26:72-84, 2002.

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