The ability to read and critically analyze the primary literature is a core skill necessary for future success in scientific fields. While many studies have described methodologies to teach journal reading, no studies examine how much practice and repetition is required before students learn how to comprehend a journal article. Here we assessed student journal reading and comprehension throughout an undergraduate biology major, analyzing students in six upper-level elective courses, some of which had no journal reading requirements while others had extensive requirements built into the course. We hypothesized that there would be a strong correlation between number of articles read in a semester and student ability to comprehend the articles, as well as their comfort and confidence with journal reading. Surprisingly, we found that the number of articles required for a class did not affect overall student reading comprehension and critical thinking even though students self-assessed that they gained comfort and confidence with articles as the number increased. Instead, we found that sophomore students in their first upper-level biology course showed significant gains in learning when the course activities include journal article readings. After this initial gain, there were no significant learning gains in future years, no matter the number of journals required in the course. Together, the results shown here indicate that it is not necessary to revise an entire curriculum to improve students’ journal reading and critical thinking skills. Instead, early intervention and exposure to critical journal article reading is most important for this skill development.

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重复很重要吗？生物学专业学生理解跨专业期刊文章的能力分析

阅读和批判性地分析主要文献的能力是未来在科学领域取得成功所必需的一项核心技能。虽然许多研究都描述了教杂志阅读的方法，但没有研究检查学生学习如何理解期刊文章之前需要多少练习和重复。在这里，我们评估了整个本科生物学专业的学生日记阅读和理解能力，分析了六门高级选修课程中的学生，其中一些课程没有期刊阅读要求，而其他课程则有广泛的要求。我们假设一个学期阅读的文章数量与学生理解文章的能力，以及他们对期刊阅读的舒适度和自信心之间存在强烈的相关性。出奇，我们发现，即使学生自我评估他们会随着文章数量的增加而获得安慰和自信，但该课程所需的文章数并不会影响学生的整体阅读理解和批判性思维。取而代之的是，我们发现，在大二学生的第一门高等生物学课程中，当该课程的活动包括期刊文章阅读时，他们的学习水平就会大大提高。在获得最初的收益之后，无论课程需要多少期刊，未来几年都不会获得重大的学习收益。总之，此处显示的结果表明，不必修改整个课程以提高学生的期刊阅读和批判性思维能力。取而代之的是，尽早干预和接触重要期刊文章阅读对于这种技能的发展最为重要。