Laboratory RSD Tasks

This page shows how the Research Skill Development Framework can be used to adapt existing assessment tasks so that they will develop complementary sets of research skills within a course.

• A new element
  
• Original assessment: Laboratory 3 'Cells and Epithelium'
• Lab-RSD Task 3 'Light Microscopic Observation of Cells'
• 2008 and beyond
  

A new element

As Eleanor Peirce and Mario Ricci worked with RSD, they found that many of their students believed the research skills they were developing applied only to literature research and writing, which is only one aspect of the Human Biology course. In 2007, Eleanor and Mario therefore decided to expand their work with the RSD Framework and use it to develop students' laboratory research skills alongside their literature research skills. 

They took an existing first-semester assessment task that focussed on a common first-year experiment - buccal smears - and worked with John Willison to modify it using RSD.  The aim was to produce an assessment task that would help students develop a set of practical research skills that would parallel their existing literature research skills, and eventually integrate with them to prepare for a later, key assessment task.

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Original assessment: Laboratory 3 'Cells and Epithelium'

The first step in the redevelopment process was to locate the Laboratory 3 task in terms of its level of student autonomy.  The task seemed to be a closed inquiry with a high degree of structure and guidance - a Level 1 exercise.  After this was determined, Eleanor, Mario and John Willison analysed the assessment against the RSD framework, with a particular focus on the experimental element, Activity 3.2 ('Light Microscopic Observation of Cells').  Their analysis identified research skill facets that were already covered in the exercise, and revealed which facets needed to be added or further developed so that the exercise would achieve its objectives.

Eleanor, Mario and John identified elements of RSD Facets A, B, D, E and F in Activity 3.2. 

In order to develop students' laboratory research skills, they rewrote the exercise to raise the level of autonomy available to students, reinforce the facets that were already present, and add elements focussing on the missing RSD Facet C (critical evaluation).

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Lab-RSD Task 3: 'Light Microscopic Observation of Cells'

In the RSD version of the assessment, the experiment remains essentially the same, but it is framed differently.  Mario and Eleanor decided to recast it as a Level 2 task - a closed inquiry with some structure or guidance available, but not requiring independent research.  They cut substantial information sections, preliminary skill-development tasks and readings from the original document, and added a detailed marking rubric; they also changed the emphasis of the task by developing new questions to encourage higher-order thinking about the experiment as a piece of research that uncovered information new to the students.

Particularly important for this was the creation of questions focussing on Facets A, C and F.  Students are now asked to reflect on their work and determine reasons for performing the experiment, rather than having a list of objectives set out for them in advance (Facet A); they are asked to evaluate the data they have generated in Questions 13 and 14 (Facet C); and they are introduced to ethical aspects of practice within the discipline through the attention paid to laboratory protocols for slide preparation and hazardous waste disposal (Facet F).

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2008 and beyond

In 2007 the Lab-RSD Task 3 worked effectively as an awareness-raising activity, in that it enabled students to make connections between their literature research skills and their laboratory work.  However, it also had some teething problems, particularly in the area of assessment.  Mario and Eleanor have continued to refine the task to make it more meaningful to their students, and easier to assess.

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