Using a “Primer Unit” in an Introductory Biology Course - “A Soft Landing”

Oct 15, 2026

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This study aimed to facilitate biology majors’ entry into an introductory cell biology course by addressing uneven prior knowledge and poor understanding of basic terms. An instructor created a “primer unit” posted on the course website before the term to align students’ comprehension and familiarity with essential concepts. Students who used the primer arrived better prepared, reduced the gap with peers from advanced high school biology, and reported feeling less intimidated despite limited persistence after formal learning.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages8

Reading Time20 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Background and rationale

Prior knowledge and learning theory

Using a “Primer Unit” in an Introductory Biology Course: “A Soft Landing” Gili Marbach-Ad1, Melina Ribke, and Jonathan M. Gershoni2 1School of Education/Humanities 2Life Sciences Department Tel Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv, Tel Aviv 69978 ISRAEL Email: [gilim@post.tau.ac.il](gilim@post.tau.ac.il); [melirib@hotmail.com](melirib@hotmail.com); [gershoni@post.tau.ac.il](gershoni@post.tau.ac.il) Abstract: This study aimed to facilitate students’ entrance to an introductory cell biology course for biology majors. The most prominent difficulty in this introductory course, is students’ poor background-knowledge, such as a lack of understanding of very basic concepts and terms, and the huge differences in students’ background knowledge. In order to bring all the students to a common and adequate level of comprehension and familiarity of basic terms, thus giving a fair chance to all attending the introductory cell biology course, the chief instructor decided to build a“primer unit”. The unit provided an overview of the subject matter of the course, and it was placed on the course website before the beginning of the course. The findings show that students who consulted the primer unit came to the course better prepared. The primer helped to reduce the gap between students who studied advanced biology in high school and those who did not. Even though the differences between students who went over the primer and those who did not was not sustained after formal learning, students reported that due to the primer they started the course less intimidated and with a better idea about what to expect. Keywords: Higher education, introductory course, cell biology, primer unit Introduction This paper is part of a longitudinal study which aimed to improve the instruction in introductory biology courses. Our choice to focus on the introductory cell biology course was due to two main reasons. One was students’ statements, such as:“This course [introductory cell biology] sometimes feels like a shower of new concepts threatening to drown me out.” The other was the course instructor’s view that a major cause for students’ difficulties in the course was a lack of background knowledge in science and in biology in particular. Our university offers some programs that are designed to help students enrich their background knowledge prior to undergraduate biology studies. For example, it is highly recommended for candidates who have not completed high-level mathematics and chemistry to attend preparatory courses. However, no such preparatory courses exist for biology related topics, despite the fact that the students’ backgrounds differ greatly, especially due to the fact that about 40% of the freshmen have not studied advanced biology in high school (MarbachAd, 2004) . We believe that the students’ experience in the first year of their studies is a very important element in their decision to stay in or leave their field of study. Tobias (1990) claimed that introductory science courses are responsible for driving away many students who began majoring in science programs. In the mid-to late 1980s, concerns about the number of freshmen entering and remaining in math and science-based majors surfaced. Not only was there a striking decline in entering-freshmen interested in science and in math (Green, 1989), but the number of students who subsequently moved out of science, math, and engineering majors by their senior year was substantial and ranged from 20% in math and physical sciences to 40% and 50% in the life sciences and engineering (Astin, 1993; Astin & Astin, 1993) . Moreover, the losses were from a pool of highly capable students (Green, 1989; White, 1992) . One of the major reasons that Seymour ( 1995) indicates for drop-out relate to the course curriculum, especially the amount of material that students have to learn in a short time. Such complaints were mainly raised regarding the introductory courses. Belzer, et al. (2003)

FAQs

What problem does the “primer unit” target in the introductory cell biology course?

It targets students’ poor background knowledge, including limited understanding of basic concepts and terms, along with large differences in students’ prior preparation.

When and how was the primer unit provided to students?

It was built by the course chief instructor, placed on the course website before the Spring 2003 course began, and made available to students at the end of the Fall 2002 semester.

What benefits did students report after using the primer unit?

Students were better prepared and reported starting the course less intimidated, with a clearer idea of what to expect, helping reduce gaps between different prior biology backgrounds.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Blitz