Somewhat belatedly I have been catching up on a couple of reports about the future of Science teaching in Europe. Both were prompted by widespread concern that school science in its present form is not meeting the needs of society for the 21st Century. The decline in students’ attitudes towards science – apparently universal across Europe – is a particular worry.

Science Education Now: A renewed pedagogy for the future of Europe was published in 2007 and Science Education in Europe: Critical reflections in 2008

Published in 2007, Science Education Now: A renewed pedagogy for the future of Europe was written at the behest of the European Commission with the specific objective “to examine a cross-section of on-going initiatives and to draw from them elements of know-how and good practive that could bring about a radical change in young people’s interest in science” (p2).

The second paper, Science Education in Europe: Critical reflections follows on from two seminars held in 2006 at the Nuffield Foundation in London. The final report was published in January 2008.

It is not my intention to analyse the documents in detail; both are written in a clear and accessible style, and at only approximately 30 pages each they are eminently worthy of your direct consideration. Here instead I will reflect on a couple of the major issues that struck me as I read the reports.

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What is the purpose of science education?

A fundamental problem relating to science education is apparent from the outset; namely the objective of the whole process. There has long been a tension between ’school science as foundational knowledge for future scientists’ and ’school science as a mean of equipping the general citizen for engagement with science as they will encounter it in everyday life’.

In most countries science is now compulsory and as such, it is argued, the emphasis must be on the second of the two aims – i.e. promoting scientific literacy for all. Osborne and Dillon, authors of the Nuffield report, see this as warranted on both moral and economic grounds – it is poor management of resources to flog the majority for a programme geared for the minority who will take science to a higher level.

This was the motivation of the major GCSE curriculum changes that took place in the UK from October 2006, with much more emphasis placed on the understanding the process of science  - “How Science Works” – than on fact regurgitation. Advocates of the changes point out that the new curriculum benefits both the general student and the future scientist, though the latter will need additional instruction to establish the core knowledge necessary for higher study.

Critics have suggested that the baby has been jettisoned with the bathwater, that the new approach is “more suitable to the pub than the classroom“. I suspect that many of my science colleagues would intuitively feel nearer this latter position. Of course no-one is yet able to measure the effect on future scientists; the first students that took the new GCSE specifications will not start undergraduate courses until September 2010 at the earliest. I have genuine expectations that we will encounter a new breed of more science-savvy students from the autumn.

Of course one of the perennial dilemmas in education in general,but particularly science education, is whether we will be afforded time to see the current developments through before some new government initiative will force additional changes to be made. Like incoming Students’ Union sabbatical officers, new political leaders have an overwhelming desire to do something differently and thereby leave their legacy, but it does make it difficult to tell which innovations were genuinely beneficial when nothing is left to run its course.

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Induction v Deduction, Inquiry v Instruction

There are some nice metaphors in the reports; I particularly like the analogy given by Osborne and Dillon that much traditional science teaching is like “being on a train with blacked-out windows – you know you are going somewhere but only the train driver knows where” (p8). Both documents hold that this type of deductive, “top-down” transmission delivers fragments of knowledge whose relevance does not become clear until you have got to your destination; if you fall by the wayside before reaching that point then it will never make any sense. Apparently random snippets of information hold no appeal for all except quiz addicts, and thus the majority, especially girls, switch off.

Instead, inquiry-based science education (IBSE) is advocated, a model in which a structured problem, ideally with a hands-on or practical dimension, comes first and then students are encouraged to develop their critical thinking and reflection skills whilst formulating an understanding of what is going on.

This latter approach has much going for it, but there are significant difficulties in adopting pedagogy of this kind. One problem is the fact it is fundamentally different to traditional approaches – you cannot get to it by minor tweaks of current practice. Secondly, ‘correct’ scientific interpretations do not always flow intuitively from observation. Thirdly, if IBSE is to avoid descent into “the blind leading the blind” it requires the science teacher to feel confident in their own underlying knowledge of the subject and in their classroom management skills, such that they will allow free-flowing discussion to occur before pulling together the salient points at the end.

This is a major sticking point. Combined with research that shows attitudes towards science are frequently cast in stone before the age of 14, a pivotal role is played by the primary school teacher. We know that relatively few primary school teachers have science backgrounds and many feel uncomfortable with even straightforward scientific experiments. There is thus a vital role to be played in equipping primary school teachers for this task. Good work is being done – both papers put a spotlight on the POLLEN programme, an initiative in 12 European countries trialling continuing professional development for primary school teachers in a way that will be scaleable across the wider community.

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Careers from Science > Careers in Science

The final point that struck a chord with me was the need to convey to students that studying science can lead on to more varied (and more interesting) careers than simply wearing a white coat and working in a lab. Osborne and Dillon talk about an emphasis on Careers from science not just Careers in science. This is one of the things I am trying to convey to undergraduate scientists through the Careers After Biological Science seminar programme where we try to include a blend of ‘obvious’ and less obvious careers that can follow advance study of science (see our sister site biosciencecareers for more details). A rung or two further down the educational ladder I take it that this is also the goal of the scienceandmaths.net programme currently being advertised in cinema trailers before the feature film.

Development of appropriate curricula, appropriate pedagogy, appropriate assessement tasks and appropriately-trained teachers are going to be crucial in producing scientifically-literate societies and socially-literate scientists in the 21st Century.

The following are notes written for a session I was asked to run with sixth form students about preparing for Med School interviews. I am quite sure there are lots of sensible suggestions that I have inadvertently omitted – please feel free to use the Comments facility to offer your additional advice.

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Your personal statement: You’ve got an interview! Apart from anything else, that means you must have done something right in your personal statement. Even though it may be months since you wrote it, it is important that you re-read it thoroughly about a week before the interview to remind yourself what you said and then reflect on what questions this may lead onto. In particular, think about:

• What did you learn via the experiences you described? You’ve probably used time spent shadowing or participating in medical activities as part of your statement. You may also have mentioned a part-time job or being captain of a sports team. Your interviewers will not so much be interested in what you’ve done as to what you’ve learnt by the experience. For example, how have your attitudes been altered? What was it about the things you’ve been involved in that makes you more suitable to be a doctor than the next person waiting outside?
• Can you provide evidence for the claims you made? I am assuming that all the things you said on your UCAS form are true (if not, you are just setting yourself up for more problems – be warned, don’t make stuff up). There is, however, a difference between you yourself knowing something to be true and being able to demonstrate that to somebody else. Let’s take an example from my wife’s experience. She wrote on her UCAS form that she was a keen dress-maker. Somebody wisely pointed out that if she was going to put that in her statement then she ought to wear something she’d made when going for interview. It was good advice; at every interview she attended somebody asked if she’d made the clothes she was wearing. If you are not yet in the habit of collecting documentation to back up work experience, Saturday employment etc then start now – portfolios of evidence are a fact of life in lots of jobs but none more so than Medicine, where even Consultants need to log their Continuing Professional Development (CPD) activities.

Body language: It may seem unfair, but it is certainly true that non-verbal communication can have a huge bearing on people’s opinions about you. You may not be able to iron out all of your faults in this area in one go, but think about the following:

• Posture: the way that you come into the room and the way that you sit in your chair are important. Try neither to slouch nor to grip the top of your other arm so tightly that you look like a survivor in a disaster movie. Avoid looking defensive or disinterested. Ideally sit upright, with both feet planted on the floor and slightly forward in your seat so that your body, and your face, looks engaged in the whole process.
• Irritating habits: do you repeatedly make the same gestures in a way that will inadvertently wind up your interviewer? Do you flick or twizzle your hair every 15 seconds? Do you click the lid of a pen on and off? Do you jangle keys or coins in your pocket? I’ve seen all of the above. I’ve also been told about the person wearing a large gold cross on a chain around her neck who wafted it back and forth during the interview in a way that made it look like her interviewers were vampires she was trying to keep at bay. Seeing yourself on video can be a useful way to reveal habits of this kind, and also verbal ‘ticks’ you might have such as finishing each sentence with “you know” or “that’s what I think” (see Practice, below).

Current issues: New developments in biomedicine are constantly being reported in the media. Make sure that you are up to date on several recent issues. Keep an eye on the BBC health pages and maybe subscribe for the year to the student BMJ. The NHS choices website runs an excellent Behind the Headlines service that unpicks the reality from the spin in media accounts of new developments. You should try and think about whether there is more than one opinion on a topic, particularly if it has clear ethical dimensions. At the time of writing, changes to the law on assisted suicide would be a classic example. Be informed but not unduly dogmatic – do think carefully about what the majority view of doctors might be on the issue, but don’t assume that everyone conducting the interview holds that opinion. The Radio4 series Inside the Ethics Committee fleshes out different views on genuine controversial cases within the NHS. Listening to one or two episodes would give you a feel for some of the controversies, and how decisions about how to proceed are made.

Motivation: In the days when the Miss World beauty competition was deemed suitable prime time viewing, people used to joke that all the contestants claimed that they wanted to “help children and bring about world peace”.

Similar clichés can tarnish a Med School interview. When asked about your motivation for being a doctor, if you reply with a bland “I want to help people” then you are likely to be rebuffed with the suggestion you should become a nurse, or a social worker, or a bin man. They all help people. Try to think about some more sophisticated reason for your application, something that shows you’ve truly understood what it means to be a doctor.

Other typical questions: Each institution is likely to have a fairly standardised set of questions they ask at interview, but these will be different for each university. Two areas that may well crop up, however, are Changes in the NHS/Medical training and some element of Self-reflection.

• Changes in the NHS – as I am sure you are aware, graduation from Med School does not mean that your training is complete. You have many years of additional study and exams to come (although you will at least get paid whilst you are doing it!) You may well be asked about your knowledge of the further training required to become a GP, or perhaps a hospital anaesthetist. You might also be asked about the impact of the (European) Working Time Directive – recently implemented legislation limiting the number of hours anyone can work in a given week. There are mixed feelings about this; the WTD ought to have brought an end to dangerously long shift, but fewer hours at work may also mean less clinical experience.
• Reflection about yourself: demonstration of an ability to be self-reflexive is another big theme in Medicine as a career. Interview questions may start to tap into this, e.g. by asking “Give an example of a time you were under pressure and how you coped” or “What would you say were your weaknesses?“. It is very common to say “I have a tendency to overwork” in response. Try to think about something that is more creative (and honest). For example, “I’m bad with names, so I’ve had to come up with a system to help me remember them”.

Practice…: If you can do so, try to organise a practice interview with someone you do not already know well. Alternatively (or additionally) try to make a video of yourself in an interview setting; there is nothing like seeing yourself on film to highlight body posture, repetitive behaviours and verbal mannerisms that might be off-putting to an interviewer.

…but don’t be ‘rehearsed’: It is a weird thing to observe, but students in interviews, and also in talks, sometimes start to speak in a robotic and detached way. Subconsciously they slip into an automaton mode which says – irrespective of the words coming out of their mouth – “I thought you were going to ask me that question and this is the answer I prepared”. This phenomenon can be particularly embarrassing when the student loses their train of thought mid-sentence and either comes to an abrupt halt, or starts again from the beginning of their ‘script’.

You do need to think carefully about the sort of things you might be asked, but avoid becoming overly wedded to a fixed set of phrases. Perhaps memorise a few key words instead – and don’t beat yourself up if you fail to cover all of the points you hoped to make.

Relax: Above all else – and in spite of all the things above (!) – try to relax. For the most part the interview will not be like any police interrogation or court scene you may have seen on telly. The rottweilers employed to cross-examine the candidates in The Apprentice will not be conducting your interview. It is rare these days for interviewers to be deliberately trying to catch you out, and if they are I would seriously question whether their institution is an appropriate place to study. They are trying to see whether or not you are the sort of person they want to engage with and invest in during the next four or five years prior to your becoming a significant asset to the health service.

(First version 23rd September 2009; this version 24th September 2009. With thanks to Jon Scott, Christine Wells and Anne Willmott for off-line advice and suggestions.)

There are many reasons why I am grateful to have spent some of my summer reading Ben Goldacre’s excellent book Bad Science, including the fact that it brought to my attention a paper The Seductive Allure of Neuroscience Explanations. The article is an account of experiments conducted by Deena Weisberg and colleagues at Yale University, and was published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience in 2008.

Recognising that neuroscience is an area of research that fascinates the public and where discoveries are frequently picked up by the general press, Weisberg et al generated four explanatory statements for each of 18 different psychological phenoma. In each case the four statements represented:

• a good explanation without specific mention of neuroscience
• the same good explanation with the addition of plausible, but logically irrelevant, neuroscientific details
• a bad explanation without specific mention of neuroscience
• the same bad explanation with the addition of the same plausible (but irrelevant) neuroscience as in the second example

Satisfaction (on a 7-point scale) engendered by the various statements was tested with three cohorts:

• naive adults (n=81), i.e. individuals with no formal neuroscience training
• students from an introductory cognitive neuroscience course (n=22)
• experts in neuroscience (n=48), although the definition of “expert” in this context was quite generous – 6 members of this group had completed an undergraduate course but were yet to start their advanced degrees, 29 were currently in graduate school and the other 13 were beyond grad school.

In developing their neuroscience explanations, the authors held to three important criteria: (1) the phrasing would indicate that this was a field in which knowledge was already established, (2) the same information would be added to both the good and the bad explanation, and (3) the neuroscience information should not alter the underlying logic of the explanation such as it was before addition of the extra ’science’.

With all three cohorts, the participants were informed that the study being reported was scientifically robust, but that the explanation offered may not be genuine. For both the ‘naive’ and ‘expert’ groups any individual always saw only statements that contained neuroscientific information (but might be a good or bad explanation), or they never had the additional details. This approach was adopted so that subjects were not alerted to the fact that some of the explanations were fuller than others. Unfortunately the relatively small size of the current undergraduate cohort meant that the method was different, any individual could be exposed to all 4 different types of explanation. This is a shame, since it does require some caution when interpreting side-by-side comparisons of the three cohorts.

So what were the findings? For all three groups, participants rated the good explanations as more satisfactory than the bad ones. Both the naive group and the students found explanations with added neuroscience to be better, and the effect was more striking for the bad explanations than for the good. With the experts, however, addition of the spurious scientific details to the good explanation actually led to a reduction in their satisfaction – an indication that with their fuller knowledge they saw through the vacuous additions.

The authors argue that the findings with novices and students may be manifestations of the “seductive details effect”. Previous studies have suggested interesting-but-irrelevant information can have a detrimental effect on cognitive tasks, e.g. memory tests.

They also point to a general observation that individuals respond more favourably when given a reason for a request, however obvious. They cite one example of such “placebic” information in which research subjects were more amenable to letting someone carry out some photocopying if they added the phrase “I have some copies to make” to a bland request “May I use your Xerox machine?”

In Bad Science, Ben Goldacre argues that ‘quacks’ exploit this phenomenon by dressing up their claims with sciencey-sounding explanations. This reminded me too of the BBC documentary Professor Regan’s Medicine Cabinet (first shown in April 2009) in which, amongst other things, Regan dresses up a test of pills for treating insomnia with all sorts of detailed instructions about what must, and what must not, be done in order for the therapy to be effective. The participants stuck to the rules and reported beneficial effects of the pills, despite the fact that they were – in fact – sugar cake decorations.

Weinberg D.S., Keil F.C., Goodstein J., Rawson E. and Gray J.R. (2008) The seductive allure of neuroscience explanations Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 20:470-477

A tweet this morning from @jon_scott alerted me to the fact that sometime over the weekend, the University of Leicester has been visited by the PR machine for the Viper service. Paving slabs had been stencilled with the company’s logo and web address. Rather ingeniously, the marketeers have jet-washed the image rather than painting it on, which I presume guards them against accusations of vandalism because all they’ve actually done is remove dirty (thanks to @jobadge for pointing this out, she is obviously more ‘direct action’ savvy than me). The image on the bumpy pavement at the traffic lights makes the wash v paint strategy most clearly.

Viper is marketing itself as a way for students to check that their work is not guilty of plagiarism. Several institutions have already wrestled with the question of whether to let students pre-submit their work to Turnitin so that they can see for themselves if it is going to get pinged by that software with the same intentions. However laudible this seems, one of the difficulties is the fact that students will simply learn how to mask their tracks rather than developing bona fide study skills. The subversive nature of the current marketing strategy reinforces the view that this is a way to “beat the system”. I was interested also that one of the recommendations for the software on the Tucows site seems to come from a student who bought a ‘bespoke’ essay for her course and was now asking for a refund as the software showed it was not quite the original work she thought she’d paid for!

Harper Perennial edition (2009)

If you have not yet read Ben Goldacre’s book Bad Science, then I thoroughly recommend that you do. As readers of his regular Guardian column or his website will already know, Goldacre has embarked on a campaign to root out example of pseudoscience and shoddy science whereever they may be found.

All the usual villians are present – homeopaths, nutritionists, slack journalists, pharmaceutical companies and AIDS dissenters. Some are mentioned by name, but given their alleged predilection for litigation, and since I do not have the time, the money or the inclination to do battle with them in the courts, I shall not repeat their identities here!

It would be wrong, however, to give the impression that Goldacre is merely on a crusade against high profile exponents of “bad science”. True, the author does sometimes betray a little too much glee as he places a bomb under the throne of a media ”health expert” (in a way that I found disturbingly reminiscent of the Physiology lecturer, when I was a first year undergraduate, recalling his boyhood experiments on frogs). Nevertheless, Goldacre is keen to emphasise that his purpose is to “teach good science by examining the bad” (p165 in my copy), adding that ”the aim of this book is that you should be future-proofed against new variants of bullshit” (p87).

It seems to me that Goldacre is correct in his assertion that the public needs help in ‘bullshit-spotting’ and that this book is an extremely valuable tool in achieving that goal. Scientific colleagues will (hopefully!) be familiar with at least some of the pitfalls of poor study design, inappropriate use of statistics and outright spin that lead to dramatic-but-spurious headlines in the newspapers. I am, however, convinced that there is plenty here that will improve the scientific literacy of undergraduates in medicine and bioscience subjects, as well as a more general readership.

Trial design
For an experiment involving human subjects to have at least some hope of generating objective data, it is important that the research method includes:

• control groups – you need something against which to compare your  intervention, whether it be a placebo or sham treatment, or the best treatment currently in use;
• appropriate blinding - i.e. that neither researcher nor participants know during the trial which individual is receiving each intervention;
• randomisation - trial subjects need to be assigned to different regimes in a genuinely unbiased way (some randomisation protocols are actually open to significant abuse, albeit subconscious);
• documentation - when the work is published, the account needs to include suitably transparent and complete details of the methods and the results such that any reader will know how the study was conducted and can therefore have a sporting chance of spotting the glitches.

The case of the widely-reported Durham trial of fish oil tablets containing Omega-3 fats (Chapter 8, ‘Pill solves complex social problem‘) is a chastening tale of ways in which poor research methodology can effectively ruin a study before it has even started. Alarm bells ought to have been triggered as soon as the trial (I will call it that for simplicity, although those involved in the research have shyed away from this term) was trumpeted in advance as a test to prove the effectiveness of fish oils in boosting academic performance. The fact that the participants knew that they were in a trial has been shown in itself to ellicit improvements (the so-called ‘Hawthorne effect’), even without the media scrum that accompanied this particular trial. Add to this the influence of potential ‘confounding factors’ (see below) and this study was never going to give clear and unequivocal results.

Common mistakes involving science literature
Goldacre’s critique of ‘nutritionists’ highlights four frequent errors in the way that science literature is handled. These are:

• extrapolating and overinterpreting data – For example studies conducted on isolated cells in vitro, can provide useful pointers for future studies in humans, but it is wrong to naively take findings from cell-based work and assume the equivalent is true in vivo in a whole organism. To purloin one of Goldacre’s favourite phrases “I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that” (p100)
• extrapolating from observational studies to make claims that require an interventional study to be conducted – ‘confounding variables’, that is differences between individuals that may or may not be linked to the factor under investigation, are hard enough to control in a study where the researcher is deliberately intervening in the partcipants’ lives to measure any apparent effects. If the study is merely observing differences between people reported to have an important lifestyle or dietary factor, there may be a lot more going on. Superficial analyses are prone to come up with erroneous conclusions.
• Cherry-picking only results that fit the hypothesis – it is, as Goldacre points out, a facet of human nature both to see patterns in data and to be more receptive to results that fit your expectation than those that do not. We need therefore to guard against selectively quoting only experiments that give the results that we want, and ignoring data (possibly the majority of findings) that don’t fit our model. This is why ‘systematic review‘ of all of the data on a particular topic is an essential process.
• Referring to studies that are not published in peer-reviewed journals, and frequently not published at all – it is bad enough when conference papers and press releases are reported with the same gravitas and authority as experiments which have been scrutinised by experts in the same field as part of the peer-review process. It is even worse, however, when some interviewees are prone to make specific claims such as “a study published just last week in America has described the same effect we see here” whilst it later turns out that no such article exists. In written work, some authors have increasingly given their books a spurious air of authority by adopting the trappings of good citation practice, e.g. use of superscript numbers to direct readers to their sources. When you flick on to check the reference, however, it turns out to be a non-scholarly document or something that they themselves have said on a different occasion.

Lies, damned lies and statistics
Statistics are clearly vital in substantiating the findings of any kind of trial and Goldacre attacks abuse of statistics on two fronts. Firstly, there is the deliberate use of an inappropriate statistical test to generate a positive-sounding number. Pharmaceutical companies are said to be guilty of this sleight of hand, and it requires a certain amount of statistical nous in order to detect when this crime is being perpetrated.

Secondly, there is the way that the numbers are presented to the public. Newspapers are prone to report the ‘relative risk increase‘, i.e. the percentage increase in condition X when presented with risk Y because it generates the most attention-grabbing numbers. The shock statistic “reading science-related blogs increases the chance that you’ll have a heart attack by 50%” may alarm you (so just in case, let me say straight way that I made this up).  A very different impression is given if we consider the ‘absolute risk increase‘ which state that “reading science-related blogs increases the chance that you’ll have a heart attack by 0.2%”. Goldacre recommends that there ought to be a move towards quoting ‘natural frequencies‘, i.e. as intelligible numbers. In this case, therefore we might say “reading science-related blogs increases the chance that you’ll have a heart attack from 4 in every 1000 people if you don’t, to 6 in every 1000 people if you do”.

Putting Bad Science to use in formal education
Are there ways in which Bad Science might be employed as a teaching tool in either secondary or tertiary education? The specifications for GCSE Science in England and Wales were altered in 2006 to place greater emphasis on “How Science Works“, and A levels were similarly altered in 2008 when this cohort passed on to the higher qualification. The reading level required to appreciate Bad Science probably procludes recommending it for the majority of 16 year olds. I believe, however, that the text would make an excellent resource for students of A level biology and/or General Studies. I do not know if the publishers have considered producing a structured guide based on the book or inclusion of end of chapter  study questions in future editions, but there is certainly scope for this.

Similarly, the book would be valuable reading for first year undergraduates in Medicine, Bioscience or Journalism. I think there would be more merit in having this as prescribed reading for a Year One skills or introductory module than several of the more ‘academic’ alternatives.

As an admissions tutor, I receive several e-mails each summer from students starting the following term and asking which textbooks to buy. My consistent response this time around has been to recommended that they read Bad Science now and wait until the course has started before they part with money for a chunky Biochemistry text.

Gripes
This is not to say that Bad Science is without faults. I do have a number of minor quibbles with the book, but I would say for the most part the fault lies with the editorial process rather than with the author per se.

Haven’t I read that before? Understandably much of the content of the book has already seen the light of day in shorter pieces in the Guardian’s Bad Science column. Repetition and/or poor ordering (by which I mean a point is introduced at length after it has already been previously noted) betray the ‘cut and shut’ nature of some of the present material. As an example of the former, we are told twice in consecutive paragraphs on page 113 about the crusade led by cereal magnate John Harvey Kellogg against a particular personal vice. Similarly, the fact that Durham council altered a press release on their website sometime after its release in order to remove the word ‘trial’ is mentioned on pages 143 and 149.

Examples of the ‘introduction after being stated’ phenomenon include the mention on page 157 that Equazen had been acquired by Galenica, follwed on p160 by a fuller account of this transaction in a tone that gave the impression it was ‘new news’. Similarly we are told on page 313 that some researchers did “something called a ‘case-control’ study” despite the fact that case-control studies were amongst the variety of experimental models discussed on page 103 and pages 295-296.

Page numbering: The cover of my edition of the book (Harper Perennial, 2009) trumpets the addition of an extra chapter. This material has not been added at the end of the text, but rather inserted at the appropriate point in the unfolding ’story’. In consequence, page numbering downstream of the insertion is altered. Although this has been recognised in the index, there are several examples of in-text cross-references where the page numbers are now 17 out. (In case anyone with influence on the next version is reading this review the reference on page 106 to p240 should be p257; page 282 should cite p294 not p277; page 330 should point to p293 not p276).

Referencing: Bad Science is intended to be a popular book not an academic tome. As such, it would be completely inappropriate for the text to be peppered with citations in a way that would interrupt the flow. I think the solution chosen here works very well – the notes in the back use page numbers and a short quote from the text as the identifiers of the source. It is partly because I know Goldacre makes regular criticism of the lack of referencing in media reports of science that I was disappointed on a couple of occasions to turn eagerly to the back and not find a citation. These tended to be times when a broad statement had been made – for example on page 75 “A huge amount of research...” does not provide any corroborating references and on page 144 “there is a lot of history here… the field of essential fatty acid research has seen research fraud, secrecy, court cases, negative findings that have been hushed up, media misreporting on a massive scale…[the list continues]” but no notes are offered. If a new edition is produced, please can these be added.

Summary
As I have already said, these are minor (some would say picky) criticisms of an otherwise extremely valuable book. Overall, I believe Ben Goldacre has provided all of us with a toolbox for evaluating sciencey-sounding stories in the media and alerted future scientists to some of the pitfalls they should avoid in the design and reporting of their work. Bad Science would make an excellent resource for post-16 education and I hope to see it adopted as a course text on A level and undergraduate programmes.

Bad Science has a cover price of £8.99 At the time of writing it is available from Amazon for £3.60.

Amongst the major science research journals, Science magazine has consistently been the most prominent in flying the flag for science education. I was very interested, therefore, in an Editorial by Carl Wieman in the September 4th 2009 issue of the magazine. In his piece Galvanising Science Departments, Wieman describes some fairly radical innovations in Science Education currently underway at the University of Colorado and the University of Bristish Columbia. The aim is to adopt evidence-based teaching methodologies with emphasis on the development of scientific thinking and problem-solving skills rather than fact regurgitation.

I have no direct experience of teaching in the USA, either as provider or recipient. I know, for example, that much greater emphasis is placed on the recommended course text in the USA than in the UK, but beyond that I cannot speak with any authority. It does sound like some of the reported innovations are things that have taken place here for some while, such as the addition of specific (skill-centred) learning goals to modules. A cornerstone of the strategy has been appointment of science education specialists, individuals who not only have expertise in their subject discipline, but are also au fait with educational and cognitive psychology studies, a variety of effective teaching strategies and – I note with some mirth – possess diplomatic skills!  The programme is ongoing, the University of Colorado is in the 4th year of an initial six year project and so the full impact of the developments will not be known for some while.

What really struck me, however, was the extent of the commitment at an institutional level, including provision of serious money to fund these changes. Far too many pro-active educators, motivated by genuine desire to improve the learning experience for their students actual receive flak not gratitude. In many cases this is, I believe, because their approach to pedagogy is different to the cultural norm and, as such, moved students (and staff) outside their comfort zone.

So much of education, even at University level, is about recall of a prescribed body of information. This is relatively easy – for both the teacher and the student; it is the mindset that underlies that chirping questions “will this be in the test?” Development of thinking skills demands more from everyone. If innovations that require higher skills are associated with just one module, or even just one academic, then that individual may unfairly receive criticism in feedback from the class.

I believe this is why Wieman is absolutely right when he says “an entire department must be the unit of change”. Depending upon institutional structure, it may even require a larger body – School, Faculty, College – to move together with shared commitment to the new goals. So far at Colorado, 60% of academic staff in three Science departments have embraced the new teaching approaches, impacting 80% of their students’ credit hours. Faculty are reported to enthusiastically discussing teaching as a scholarly activity – that’s surely got to be a good thing. But – it needs time and it needs money.

Wieman C (2009) Galvanising Science Departments Science 325:1181

The Higher Education Academy Centre for Bioscience Pedagogic Research in the Biosciences day conference brought together about thirty academics, for the most part Bioscience specialists, who have been involved to educational research. The day turned out to be highly informative and thought provoking. Some on the hoof reflections were collated via Twitter – click this link.

I was chastised recently (and rightly so) for failure to respond to an e-mail sent by a colleague. It did set me thinking, however, about a possible analogy between e-mail and teaching. This may be old hat, so apologies if I’ve reinvented the round thing with tyres.

People tend to make the assumption when an e-mail has been sent that it has been received, but there may be several ways in which this doesn’t hold true.  Firstly, it may not have been delivered at all – wrongly addressed perhaps (there’s a new student same surname, same initial just started at Leicester and they’ve kindly forwarded mail misdirected to them, though they need not have done so). Secondly, there may be some technical glitch – machine failure, necessary disconnection of PC whilst moving house/office, etc. Thirdly, the message may have made it successfully to the mailbox, it may even have been opened, but not to the grey matter of the recipient.

It’s this third example of the lack of – meaningful - receipt that struck me as most analagous to teaching. We can stand at the front of a lecture theatre “sending off e-mails” of the finest quality in the form of our lecture content, but there is no guarantee that this content is being received. Even if the student is present, and has signed the register to prove it, the message we are sharing may not elicit the response that was intended/expected. There may just be too much going on in their mental mailbox for our nuggets to be deemed to have the worth we attached to them.

I’m still working on how the analogy stretches to the other versions – failure to turn up to a session would be in there, as an example of the second sort, I guess. Any suggestions?

Appropriate citation of source documents is a key element in all academic writing. As anyone involved in the teaching of undergraduates will know, however, suitable ways of organising reference lists, and conventions for highlighting within the new text the points at which the sources have been used, are not always intuitive.

Colleagues and students may therefore be interested in an online tutorial about referencing that has recently been launched at the University of Leicester.

The student reference guide is the latest online tutorial produced at Leicester

It is very clear that different subjects have their own discipline-specific rules governing citation and referencing. Developed as a project of GENIE, the Genetics CETL, the referencing style is contextualised for students in the Biological Sciences.

The tutorial has evolved from a need identified by both staff and students. The team was convened by Raymond Dalgleish and the bulk of the graft in producing the tutorial was undertaken by Nicola Suter-Giorgini. One of the tensions has been to distinguish necessary aspects of a reference scheme from individual preferences about ‘the best way’ for citation to be undertaken. We are sure that the current version has scope for improvement, and suggestions would be gratefully received.

The new tutorial is a useful addition to a growing collection of online tutorials to aid students in different aspects of writing. An earlier tutorial, Don’t cheat yourself, was originally developed by Stuart Johnson for students in the biosciences. A range of versions with different subject-specific examples are now available.

"Don't cheat yourself" has proven to be a popular tutorial dealing with the issue of plagiarism

I finally decided to take the solution into my own hands, and in the best Blue Peter tradition I decided that with the aid of a little sticky-backed plastic the solution was much closer to home. I’m very please with the outcome, so I offer you the following practical suggestions.

The first thing needed is a cardboard box of suitable dimensions. The best ones I’ve found for the purpose are used to supply Corning Costar 5ml or 10 ml disposable pipettes. The width of the boxes is perfect for DVDs and each box can store 27 discs. They are, however, a little too tall, so some careful cutting is required. I would recommend that you choose a standard height of somewhere between 14 and 15 cm up from the base; if you slip below 14 cm the top of the DVDs will show, but if you go too much towards 15 cm then covering with tape (often 5 cm wide) becomes less convenient since you will need an extra circuit of tape to neatly cover the box. About 14.2 cm may be ideal.

recommended equipment for preparing DVD storage box

A Stanley knife is the most efficient method for cutting the top off the boxes, but in this age of litigation I should point out that knives are potentially dangerous and you carry out this step at your own risk. If you have any doubt that you can use it safely then a sharp pair of scissors is a sensible alternative. You will need a straight edge to cut against – a metal ruler or the back-edge of a saw are ideal.

the flat back-edge of a saw can offer a good straight line to cut against

Having cut the box to the appropriate dimensions, it’s time to cover it with some suitable tape. Standard brown packing tape is feasible, but not a very interesting option. Several alternatives are possible; I’ve used  Floor Marking tape manufactured by Advance because it was available from a local supplier, but I notice two other UK suppliers with interesting colour and pattern options: Marnic and Le Mark (who even offer a camouflaged tape, if that happens to light your candle).

50mm wide vinyl tape is available in various colours

With careful application of tape it should be possible to cover the whole box using just three circuits of tape. One roll of tape should then be sufficient to cover 7 or 8 boxes.