Development of Scientific Thinking Facilitated by Reflective Self-Assessment in a Communication-Intensive Food Science and Human Nutrition Course

A one-credit seminar on controversies in food science and human nutrition was a platform to introduce students to learning frameworks for thinking-like-a-scientist. We hypothesized that explicitly engaging students in thinking about their thinking abilities within these frameworks would enhance their self-perception of scientific thinking, an important general ability for food scientists. Our objectives were to assess thinking-like-a-scientist using a student self-assessment survey, and analyze their self-reflections for evidence of such thinking. For students enrolled in one of the offerings of this course among 5 semesters from 2012 to 2014, differences in scores on a survey instrument for thinking-like-a-scientist from the beginning to the end of the course showed gains in self-assessed abilities (N = 21 to 22 students/semester). In each of the first 2 semesters in which we introduced thinking-like-a-scientist frameworks, students thought they were better at defining problems scientifically by 13% to 14%. In the 3rd course offering, students' self-assessment of their abilities to seek evidence improved by 10%. In the 4th and 5th semester course offerings, students' self-assessed abilities to develop plans based on evidence improved by 7% to 14%. At the end of each semester, students' self-reflections on scientific thinking (N = 20 to 24/semester) included specific reference to asking questions (45% to 65% of reflections) and making plans based on evidence (26% to 50% of reflections). These data support the usefulness of self-reflection tools as well as specific learning frameworks to help students to think about and practice thinking-like-a-scientist.