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What To Expect In Waec Biology And Hot Questions

Apr 26, 2020 by FlashIsaac 47 Comments

2021 Waec Biology : What are the areas Waec will set  Biology Questions from and how do I get Waec Biology 2021 OBJ And Essay Questions ?  Waec  2021  Biology  Questions is what we shall discuss here.

Waec Biology  is important to every  Waec  2021 Science Candidate . Read on for Sample  Questions Waec would set in 2021 Biology Objective and Theory  or click here  for Waec 2021  Biology Syllabus .

Waec 2021  Biology 1 & 2 Questions And Answers

You have asked the questions, what are the areas Waec sets questions in  Biology ? I am here to give you the bold answers to your question.

To make this topic easy for you to understand, I will divide it into three sections. The three sections are:

• Waec 2021    Biology  Objective Questions
• 2021 Waec    Biology  Essay Questions And Answers.
• Instructions To Pass Waec 2021 Examination.

Waec 2021  Biology  Objective Questions

As usual, you will be given questions and options A to E to choose from. Normally, the number of objective questions (OBJ)  you are to answer in Waec 2021  Biology  Science is 50.

How Sophie Made Learning Fun

1. The Following Are Sample Waec Objective Questions. They are likely  Biology  questions for Waec 2021.

Erythrocytes are known as ________ A. white blood cell B. red blood cells C. phagocytes D. leucocytes

2. Gregor Mendel is regarded as the father of ______ A. variation B. genetics C. mycology D. natural selection

3. The most efficient respiratory structure used by free-living protozoan is ________ A. body surface B. gills C. buccal cavity D. spiracle

4. Carbon (iv) oxide is added to the atmosphere when ________? A. plants build-up organic compounds B. plants absorb mineral salts C. sugars are completely broken down in animals D. there is thunderstorm

5. The host of liver flake are ______? A. pig and snail B. pig and sheep C. sheep and snail D. pig

6. Which of the following factors can reduce the population of a community? A. Immigration B. edaphic C. predation D. mutualism

7. In mosses the structure which performs the function of water absorption is the _________? A. root hairs B. rhizoids C. capsule D. hyphae

8. How does an enzyme affect the rate of a reaction? A. It lowers the activation energy of the reaction, increasing the reaction rate. B. It raises the activation energy of the reaction, decreasing the reaction rate. C. It lowers the activation energy of the reaction, decreasing the reaction rate. D. It raises the activation energy of the reaction, increasing the reaction rate.

9. Insects that goes through adult stage without becoming pupa are except ________ A. crickets B. cockroach C. grasshopper D. bees

10. A bacteria that is spherically shaped is called? A. diplobacillus B. coccus C. bacillus D. vibrio

11. The flame cells are used for excretion in A. Fluke B. Nematode C. Bacteria D. Volvox

12. Food chain refers to the feeding relationships between animals in a ______? A. Family B. phylum C. community D. group

13. The host of Taenia Solium is _________ A. cow B. pig C. sheep D. dog

14. When an ovary is placed on the receptacle above the other floral parts it is referred to as A. half inferior ovary B. superior ovary C. inferior ovary D. half superior ovary

15. The type of nutrition exhibited when organism lives on the body surface or inside the body of another type of organism is A. Holozoic B. parasitic C. saprohytic D. carnivores

16. An example of organism which exists as a colony is A. Volvox B. paramecium C. euglena D. chlamydomonas

17. The following are example of morphological variation except A. size B. ability to taste PTC C. color D. fingerprint

18. Ability to taste PTC in some individuals is a character that is A. acquired B. heritable C. sex-linked D. morphological

19. Agglutination is the _______ of the ________ A. coagulation, white bloodcell B. coagulation, water C. white blood cells, red blood cell D. coagulation, red blood cell

20. What organelle is the site of photosynthesis in plants? A. Chloroplasts B. Ribosomes C. Cytoplasm D. Mitochondria

21. Which of the following is a characteristics of a bacteria except _______?

A. they can be seen under microscope B. they range from 0.5 µ m in diameter C. They are grouped accordingly to their cell shape D. they do not cause disease

22. The level of organization of Amoeba and Euglena cell is ________? A. organ B. system C. cell D. tissue

23. The appendicular skeleton comprises of A. pectoral and pelvic girdles B. forelimbs, skull and pectoral girdle C. lungs and ribs D. skull and the vertebral column

24. The protista that is a producer is an aquatic food chain is

A. trypanosome B. paramecium C. chamydomonas D. amoeba

25. Which scenario would cause a covalent bond to form? A. Two atoms share electrons so they can fill their outer shells B. The constant motion of electrons and the creation of charge imbalances bonds two molecules together C. A hydrogen atom with a slight positive charge is attracted to a negative charge of another molecule or atom D. One atom loses one or more electrons and the other atom gains one or more electrons

26. The difference in structure, morphological and behavior of plant and animal is called A. adaptation B. evolution C. variation D. succession

27. The cilia in paramecium are use for A. respirating B. locomotion C. protection D. regulating food intake E. excretion

28. Euglena may be classified as a plant because it A. has chloroplast B. has a gullet C. lives in a pond D. possesses a flagellum E. has pellicle

29. A trawler on a fishing trip caught a type of animal with hairs on its body. This animal could have been A. An amphibian B. a reptile C. a shark D. a mammal E. a seagull

30. which of these type of skeleton is most appropriate for a cockroach? A. Hydrostatic skeleton B. Exoskeleton C. Endoskeleton D. Cartilaginous skeleton E. Bony skeleton

31. when protein are broken down they also provide A. oxygen B. carbonhydrate C. energy D. amino-acid E. carbon dioxide

32. The function of lenticels is A. to remove excess water in plant B. to absorb water from the atmosphere C. for gaseous exchange D. to absorb light E. to store food

33. The following events take place during conjugation in spirogyra 1. The protoplasm of each of the conjugating cell separate from the cell wall to form a Gamete; the gamete of one filament passes through the conjugation tube to meet the gamete of the other filament 2.

The zygote soon become surrounded by thick brown wall to become zygospore which burst after a short rest and germinate to produce a new filament 3. The nuclei of the gametes fuse to form a zygote 4.

The protuberance meet and where they touch the cell-wall disappear so that a conjugation tube joining the two cell is formed 5. protuberance appear on the wall of the cell of two filament of spirogyra lying side by side opposite one another. Now what is the correct sequence in which the above sequence occur? A. 1,2,3,4,5 B. 1,2,4,5,3 C. 3,4,5,2,1 D. 5,4,1,3,2 E. 5,4,3,1,2

34. Which of the following is a characteristic of animal cell? A. Presence of chloroplast B. possession of cellulose cell-wall C. absence of large vacuoles D. presence of large vacuoles E. presence of chromosome

35. Nitrifying bacteria keep the soil fertile by A. converting nitrate to nitrogen B. converting ammonium salt to nitrate C. converting atmospheric nitrogen to plant nitrogen D. converting nitrate to nitrous oxide E. converting atmospheric nitrogen to nitrates

36. In the life histroy of schistosoma (Bilharzia), one of the following is intermediate host A. man B. snail C. mosquito larva D. crayfish E. fish

Read Also: How to answer Waec questions very fast

Biology Waec 2021 Theory Questions And Answers

The following are the kind of questions you should expect in Waec 2021  Biology Theory or Essay. They are hot cake questions:

• What is  Biology
• List and explain the organs responsible for digestion
• Write short note on reproduction
• Write short note on the life histroy of schistosoma (Bilharzia)

That’s all for now… I shall update you when more real live questions and answers come up. However, I advise that you are hard working so as to pass your Waec once and for all.

Read Also: How to read and pass Waec in one day

Feel free to share this article with friends using the share buttons and don’t fail to comment using the comment box below.

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47 Comments

Daniel joy says

Is the answer correct

Anonymous says

It does not work it is a prank

Which of the following structure will not be found in the nucleus of a cell

Mujidat says

Jacinta says

Biology question please

Jedidiah Gbolan says

Are these questions really important, that is,will any appear in the evaluation

Angela says

anwers for on the 26TH biology pls

omamugho efeturi vivian says

I really appreciate you so much and I’m waiting for answers to the question

The answers to the question pls.

DANNY K says

biology practical for tomorrow

Pls yoruba answer Pls obj

ADEDOKUN says

Really need Yoruba questions and answers

danny k says

Yoruba is it a subject

It’s not ooooo

Its rily cul More efforts

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Paper 1 | Objectives | 50 Questions

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WASSCE (WAEC) Biology Past Questions

LarnEdu has the largest independent WAEC past questions collection on the web existing since 2013. 

We started this page to help students who can’t afford hard-copy WAEC Biology past question papers or who want easy access to the past question papers on their mobile device or computers.

We’re not perfect although have been working towards improving every day in accordance with our mission to inspire and support learning among students in their quest to self-actualisation.

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Quick Link To The WASSCE Biology Past Questions Section

If you’re not interested in reading other essential information on this page, then click this link to quickly navigate to the WAEC Biology Past question papers section you want to visit.

Brief Information About The WASSCE

The West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) is a standardised test taken in West Africa, mostly by students who wish to proceed to the higher institution. It is administered by the West African Examination Council (WAEC).

It is only offered to candidates living in Anglophone West African countries namely: Ghana, Gambia, Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone and is written 3 times a year ( January/ February, May/June and Nov/Dec).

The WASSCE tests candidates according to the topics on the  WAEC syllabus .

The contents in each WASSCE Biology question paper (for a specific year) is usually similar from one country to another. Questions on the WASSCE Biology theory section may be specified to be answered by candidates from a particular country and this happens mostly in the theory section.

A WASSCE question paper on a particular subject may be entirely cancelled and changed in a region when the West African Examination Council (WAEC) heading that region suspects a leakage of examination papers before the start of the exam.

Benefits Of Regular WAEC Biology Past Questions Practise

Speed: Regular practise of WASSCE Biology past questions can go a long way in increasing your speed on the WAEC Biology exam day. It’s no secret that questions on the WASSCE for each subject are usually similar to questions in previous years since they’re from the same WAEC syllabus . WAEC also sometimes repeats questions  word-for-word.

Exposure: Regular practice exposes you to your weaknesses and gives you a chance to better yourself before the exam.

Decreases chances of anxiety: Regular and efficient practice improves your confidence before the exam.

These and many more are some beautiful benefits of practising WASSCE Biology past questions.

So it’s important you make it a habit to practise with WASSCE past question papers. There’s no doubt that this would help you achieve the grades you desire on the WASSCE on the long run.

Don’t just focus only on the WAEC past questions we provide on this page. We also have other WASSCE related resources that will be of great help to you.

Below this section are the Biology WASSCE past questions we have for now. Use them in accordance to the rules stated on this page and our Terms of Service.

Biology WASSCE Past Questions Papers Section (Download As Pdf Files Or View Directly From Your Browser)

Other Popular And Essential WASSCE Prep Resources On LarnEdu(Recommended)

We go through great lengths to provide the best resources for students preparing for the WASSCE and below are links to some of our top picks for you.  

• WASSCE Resources (this page contains essential information on the WASSCE with links to every important WASSCE prep resource on LarnEdu including the links below)
• WASSCE Syllabus (this page contains WASSCE syllabus on virtually all subjects)
• WASSCE Past Questions  (this page contains the largest archive of WASSCE past questions on various subjects)
• How To Pass The WASSCE  (this is a definitive guide with the most effective strategies on how to pass the WASSCE)
• Steps To Take If You Had A Poor WAEC Result  (this is an article on what to do if your WASSCE result is poor including alternative options to get admitted to universities and more)

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I’m very relief to be part of this platform, I one to do biology but I didn’t have any knowledge in biology

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Excellent and very resourceful site. Please have past questions on biology practicals.

Thank you! We’re working on adding more WASSCE past questions for various subjects soon. Apologies for any inconvenience caused. Best wishes.

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Biology past questions and answers

Hi Vandy, please visit our past questions page ( http://larnedu.com/wassce-waec-past-practice-questions/ ) for past questions for the subjects you mentioned. We’re working on adding more WASSCE past questions for various subjects soon. Apologies for any inconvenience caused. Best wishes.

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WAEC Biology Past Questions | FREE DOWNLOAD

WAEC Biology Questions – Free WASSCE past questions for Biology.

Here is collection of Biology past examination questions to assist you with your studies for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for both School and GCE candidates.

If you are in your last stage of Secondary School Education (May/June) or not in the School system (GCE), the importance of using old exam papers in preparing for your West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), cannot be over emphasised. By using past exam papers as part of your preparation, you can find out what you already know. By the same token you also find out what you do not know well enough or don’t know at all.

See: WAEC Timetable for May/June Candidates and WAEC Timetable for GCE Candidates .

What is more, the WAEC past questions for Biology can also be used as an organisational tool to manage your time better, as you can plan according to each section of the paper.

As a matter of fact, revision is more better than memorising facts and going over notes. You can practise for your Biology WAEC Exam by answering real questions from past papers. This will give you a better chance of passing.

WAEC Past Questions for Biology

Click on the year you want to start your revision.

• Biology Paper 2 (Objective Test and Essay) – June 1993
• Biology Paper 2 (Objective Test and Essay) – June 1994
• Biology Paper 2 (Objective Test and Essay) – November 2011

Do you have any other past question(s) other than the ones listed here? If yes, don’t hesitate to share them with others by sending it to  [email protected] .

You have to keep trying more than one exam to increase your success in the forthcoming WAEC Exam.

Recommended:

• WAEC Syllabus For Biology .
• WAEC Sample Questions and Scheme For Biology
• WAEC Past Questions and Answers For Other Subjects .

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Biology Past Questions

A plant which grows on another plant without apparent harm to the host plant is called

• A. a parasite
• B. an epiphyte
• C. a saprophyte
• D. a predator
• E. a hermaphrodite

Given the equation: 6CO\(_2\) + 6H\(_2\)O → C\(_6\)H\(_{12}\)O\(_6\) + 6O\(_2\) {Under sunlight & Chlorophyll) The process represented by the above equation is?

• A. proteinsynthesis
• B. respiration
• C. photosynthesis
• D. transpiration
• E. translocation

Given the equation: 6CO2 + 6H2O → C6H12O6 + 6O2 {Under sunlight & Chlorophyll) The oxygen given off during the above process is derived from

• A. sunlight
• B. chlorophyll
• C. carbon dioxide
• D. atmosphere

One of the function of xylem is

• A. strengthening the stem
• B. manufacturing food
• C. reducing loss of water
• D. conducting manufactured food
• E. storing unused sugar

People suffering from myopia

• A. can see near object clearly
• B. can see far away object clearly
• C. cannot see any object clearly
• D. are colour blind
• E. are able to see clearly in the dark
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2021 WAEC Biology Essay and OBJ Answers [10th September]

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Friday 10th September 2021

Biology 2 (Essay) – 9:30am –11:10am

Biology 1 (Objective) – 11:10am –12:00noon

2021 WAEC BIOLOGY OBJECTIVES (OBJ) ANSWERS:

2021 waec biology essay or theory answers:.

(1ai) When the head moves or changes position,the endolymph fluid in the semi-cricular canals moves and stimulates the nerve endings.

The nerve endings then transmit the impulses through vestibular to the cerebellum of the brain where the new position at the head is interpreted and the appropriate responses sent to the muscular system to maintain body balance.

(1aiii) The middle ear in human can be split into three parts; external, mdiddle and inner. The middle ear lies within the temporal bone, and extends from the tympanic membrane to the lateral wall of the inner ear. The main function of the middle ear is to transmit vibrations from the tympanic membrane to the inner ear via the auditory ossicles.

6ai) External fertilization is a mode of reproduction in which a male organism’s sperm fertilizes a female organism’s egg outside of the female’s body.

(6aii) Internal fertilization occurs most often in land-based animals, although some aquatic animals also use this method. There are three ways that offspring are produced following internal fertilization.

6bi) (i)Toad (ii)Frog

(6bii) (i)Goat (ii)Cow

(6ci) (i)the foetus will not get oxygen (ii)the foetus will not get nutrients. (iii)waste products from your baby’s blood will not be removed

(6cii) [pick three] (i)fundus (ii)corpus (iii)isthmus (iv)cervix.

38, 39. Two conscious patient X and Y whose blood group genotypes are AO and AB respectively were transfused with blood from the same donor. Patient X immediately showed signs of difficulty in breathing while patient Y showed no negative reaction.

38. Patient X and Y were likely transfused with blood of genotype

39. What should the hospital have done to prevent patient X from showing the symptom described above? Patient X should have

A. Undergone an agglutination test

B. Been asked for the blood group.

C. Been screened for HIV

D. Undergone malaria test.

40. The greatest contribution to genetic studies was made by

A. Gregor Mendel

B. Thomas Morgan

C. Charles Darwin

D. Robert Hooke.

41. The exchange of genes between homologous chromosomes is called

A. Crossing over

B. Back cross

C. Test cross

D. Mutation

The diagrams below are illustration of the inheritance of coat in mice. J, K, L, M and N are parents. The crosses between two parent mice gave rise to offspring P, Q, R and S. study the diagram and answer question 42 and 43

NECO BIOLOGY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 2020 ( Essay & Objective)

WAEC GCE 2020 PHYSICS QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ( Essay & Objective)

Waec gce 2020 – agricultural science questions and answers ( objective & essay), waec gce 2020 – agricultural science questions and answers ( practical).

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Programmes & Qualifications

Cambridge o level biology (5090).

• Syllabus overview

Cambridge O Level Biology helps learners to understand the biological world in which they live and take an informed interest in science and scientific developments. The syllabus includes the basic principles and concepts that are fundamental to the subject, some current applications of biology, and a strong emphasis on practical skills.

Learners also develop an understanding of the scientific skills essential for progression to Cambridge International AS & A Level, further education or a career related to science.

The syllabus year refers to the year in which the examination will be taken.

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Syllabus updates

We revise our qualifications regularly to make sure that they continue to meet the needs of learners, schools and higher education institutions around the world and reflect current thinking. We have updated this syllabus and all assessment materials so they are clearer and more consistent across the three sciences. This is helpful for teachers who are teaching more than one science syllabus, and students who will enjoy a more coherent experience across each science. Please see the 2023-2025 syllabus document for full details on the changes.

What are the main changes to the syllabus?

• updated the learning objectives to demonstrate the depth you should teach each topic. The wording looks different in many places, but the teaching content remains largely the same
• updated the topic structure to make sure topics and sub-topics are clearly linked
• removed and added topics; making sure that the teaching time is still within the guided learning hours
• included a list of mathematical requirements to support teaching and learning.

What are the main changes to the assessment?

• We have removed Section B (optional questions) in Paper 2. There are no separate sections to the paper and all questions are compulsory.
• We have increased the duration of Paper 3.
• Paper 6 is now called Paper 4. This paper has a similar structure to Paper 3, making sure there is consistency between the two papers that assess practical skills.

When do these changes take place?

The updated syllabus is for examination from June 2023 onwards. Please see the 2023-2025 syllabus for full details.

We are developing a comprehensive range of materials to help you teach the updated syllabus. These resources will be available from September 2020 onwards (before first teaching) through our School Support Hub and include:

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Endorsed resources

View the latest resource that is being developed by our Endorsement Partner for the Cambridge O Level Biology syllabus (5090).

Cambridge O Level Biology (Hodder Education)

Written by renowned expert authors, our updated resources enable the learner to effectively navigate through the content of the revised Cambridge O Level Biology syllabus (5090).

Read more on the Hodder Education website

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BIOLOGY ESSAY QUESTIONS: COGNITIVE LEVEL AS REVEALED BY BLOOM’S TAXONOMY

Received: 22nd april 2021; revised: 07th august, 28th september 2021, 6th january 2022; accepted: 12th january 2022.

• Marthese Azzopardi Senior Lecturer, PhD, Department of Biology, University of Malta Junior College, Msida, Malta
• Carmel Azzopardi Senior Lecturer, Department of Physics, University of Malta Junior College, Msida, Malta

Examination questions indicate the cognitive level anticipated from students. Although essays have the potential to test higher cognitive skills, the extent of their effectiveness in assessing these is not clear. The objective of this study was to estimate how well Biology essay questions measure higher-order cognitive skills in a public post-secondary institution in Malta. The essay questions were classified into cognitive levels based on Bloom's Revised Taxonomy and categorized as those demanding lower-order thinking skills (LOTS) and higher-order thinking skills (HOTS). No essays from the Applying and Creating objectives were recorded. Except for one year, questions from at least three cognitive objectives were present in each examination paper. Results showed that questions from the Remembering cognitive objective predominated. Some topics comprised 100% LOTS but others were from three objectives. These results indicate that paper setters attempt to design essay titles that belong to various cognitive objectives, but more attention should be dedicated to diversifying. The value of this study is that examiners have a database to choose a mixture of LOTS and HOTS in future examinations, rendering them more effective. The findings highlight the importance for examiners to use Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy when constructing questions.

Anderson, L.W., Krathwohl, D.R., Airasian, P.W., Cruikshank, K.A., Mayer, R.E., Pintrich, P.R.,

Raths, J., & Wittrock, M.C. (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing:

A revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. New York: Pearson, Allyn &

Azzopardi, C., & Azzopardi, M. (2020). Analysing Maltese Biology Examination Questions

according to Cognitive Complexity. European Journal of Teaching and Education. 2. 32-

https://doi.org/10.33422/ejte.v2i4.524

Azzopardi, M., & Azzopardi, C. (2021). Classification of Maltese biology examination questions

using Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. Symposia Melitensia, 17, 107-122

Cullinane, A., & Liston, D. (2016). Review of the Leaving Certificate biology examination

papers (1999–2008) using Bloom’s taxonomy – an investigation of the cognitive demands

of the examination.Irish Educational Studies, 35:3, 249-

https://doi.org/10.1080/03323315.2016.1192480

Edussuriya, D.H., Waduge, R.N., Lamawansa, M.D., & Samaranayake, A.N., (2018). Evaluation

of the cognitive level of essay questions of an undergraduate medical program in Sri

PUPIL: International Journal of Teaching, Education and Learning

ISSN 2457-0648

Lanka, using bloom’s taxonomy. Sri Lanka Journal of Medicine, 27(1), 3–

https://doi.org/10.4038/sljm.v27i1.72

Kurdi, M. S. (2015). Essay type questions & their improvements & short answer questions.

Medical Education Technology Workshop, At Kims, India. Retrieved from

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281026940_ESSAY_TYPE_QUESTIONS_TH

EIR_IMPROVEMENTS_SHORT_ANSWER_QUESTIONS

Matriculation Certificate Examinations Advanced Biology Syllabus 2019, MATSEC

Examinations Board University of Malta (31pp). Retrieved

from https://www.um.edu.mt/_data/assets/pdf_file/0020/352460/AM05.pdf

Mercieca, L. (2014). Trends In MATSEC Advanced Level Biology From 1998 To 2011.

Unpublished dissertation Presented to the Faculty of Education in Part Fulfilment of the

Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor in Education (Honours) at the University of

Malta (398pp)

Nippold, M. A., LaFavre, S., &Shinham, K. (2020). How adolescents interpret the moral

messages of fables: Examining the development of critical thinking. Journal of Speech,

Language and Hearing Research (Online),63(4),1212-

https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_JSLHR-19-00168

Palmer, E.J., & Devitt, P.G. (2007). Assessment of higher order cognitive skills in undergraduate

education: modified essay or multiple choice questions? Research paper.BMC Medical

Education, 7: 49. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6920-7-49

Statistical Report (2020): Matriculation Certificate Examinations 81 pp. MATSEC Examinations

Board, Universita’ Ta’ Malta

Supovitz, J. (2009). Can High-Stakes Testing Leverage Educational Improvement? Prospects

from the Last Decade of Testing and Accountability Reform. Journal of Educational

Change, 10 (Anniversary Issue): 211–227. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-009-9105-2

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NECO Biology Questions and Answers 2021/2022 [Theory & OBJ Expo]

• April 5, 2022

Updated NECO Biology Questions and Answers 2021: This is an online Solution to NECO Biology Questions 2021 and sample answers expos for Theory & OBJ papers.

This solution is made available so as to help NECO candidates looking for NECO Biology Questions and Answers 2021 expo solution for paper 1 and paper 2.

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NECO Biology OBJ & Theory Questions and Answers 2021

Have you ever wondered and thought of how you can possibly write this NECO Biology exam and come out with a very good grade?

If you say yes, then this is the very best NECO Biology Questions and Answers 2021 solution material that is highly recommendable to all NECO Candidates.

RECOMMENDED: Download NECO Timetable PDF

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NECO Biology Exam Guide: once you get to your exam venue, make sure you locate the exam Hall.

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Now, make sure you fill in your candidate’s exam details which include exam Number, full name, Center number, etc.

NECO Biology OBJ Questions and Answers Expo 2021

Below are some sample NECO 2021 Biology questions and answers to start with. Note, they are just sample questions provided to give you insight on the kind of questions you should be expecting.

Take note of them, check their correct options, and keep them in memory in case you see any in the exam. We may post the real and correct answers for 2021 anytime. So keep checking this page.

1. Which of these is a mixed gland?

Correct Answer is Pancreas

2. ______ are Tissue which cells have lost the capacity of cell division?

• Meristematic tissue
• Permanent tissue
• Both Mesristmatic and Permanent tissue
• None of these

The Correct Answer is Permanent tissue

3. Why do wooden doors get difficult to open or close during Rainy Season? because of;

• Plasmolysis

Correct Answer is Imbibition

4. Agrostology can be define as the study of__________?

• Seed of oil

Correct Answer is Grass

5. How many pairs of Peripheral nerves are in man________?

 Correct Answer is 43

6. What is found in eukaryotic cells that are not prokaryotic?

Correct Answer is A) Nucleus

7. The total salt content in the blood is around_____?

• 85 to 11.9%

Correct Answer is : D) 0.85 to 0.9%

8. Which of these hormones accelerate the rate of a heartbeat?

• acetylcholine

Correct Answer is A) adrenaline

9. The human heart is also Known as….?

• Neurogenic heart
• Myogenic heart
• Pulsating heart
• Ampullary heart

Correct Answer is: B) Myogenic heart

10. The father of Zoology is__________?

• Theophrastus

 The Correct Answer is: B) Aristotle

11. Spermology is the study of_________?

The Correct Answer is: B) Seed

12. Which of this doesn’t have a red blood cell?

The Correct Answer is: B) Earthworm

13. Which of the following does Chambered heart occur in______?

Correct Answer is: D) Cockroach

14.The Amount of energy released by 1 gram of glucose is equal to to_____?

Correct Answer is: B) 4 kcal

15. Why is the corner of the cells of a collenchyma tissue in the plant thickened?

Because of the deposition of;

• Lignin and suberin
• Suberin and cutin
• Cellulose and pectin
• Chitin and lignin

Correct Answer is C) Cellulose and pectin

NECO Biology Theory Answers to Questions 2021

Below are awesome tips and instructions for the the NECO Biology theory questions and answers 2021.

Please kindly follow the instructions below to answer any NECO biology Theory question, then follow these steps:

• Read and understand the instructions on the paper.
• Make sure you read a question twice before answering.
• Make sure you understand what the question is about before answering.
• Let your answer be very short, simple and explanatory.

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Please kindly use this NECO Biology Questions and answers 2021 as a hint and instruction to answering every other questions.

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ATBU Cut Off Mark 2021/2022 (Departmental & JAMB CutOff Point)

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• June 1, 2023

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Nationally endorsed learning objectives to improve course design in introductory biology

Contributed equally to this work with: Kelly M. Hennessey, Scott Freeman

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Biology Department, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

• Kelly M. Hennessey, 
• Scott Freeman

• Published: August 15, 2024
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308545
• Reader Comments

Introductory biology for majors is one of the most consequential courses in STEM, with annual enrollments of several hundred thousand students in the United States alone. To support increased student success and meet current and projected needs for qualified STEM professionals, it will be crucial to redesign majors biology by using explicit learning objectives (LOs) that can be aligned with assessments and active learning exercises. When a course is designed in this way, students have opportunities for the practice and support they need to learn, and instructors can collect the evidence they need to evaluate whether students have mastered key concepts and skills. Following an iterative process of review, revision, and evaluation, which included input from over 800 biology instructors around the country, we produced a nationally endorsed set of lesson-level LOs for a year-long introductory biology for major’s course. These LOs are granular enough to support individual class sessions and provide instructors with a framework for course design that is directly connected to the broad themes in Vision and Change and the general statements in the BioCore and BioSkills Guides. Instructors can implement backward course design by aligning these community endorsed LOs with daily and weekly learning activities and with formative and summative assessments.

Citation: Hennessey KM, Freeman S (2024) Nationally endorsed learning objectives to improve course design in introductory biology. PLoS ONE 19(8): e0308545. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308545

Editor: Mc Rollyn Daquiado Vallespin, Far Eastern University - Manila, PHILIPPINES

Received: February 17, 2024; Accepted: July 25, 2024; Published: August 15, 2024

Copyright: © 2024 Hennessey, Freeman. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.

Funding: SF received an NSF award. Grant award number: 2012362 National Science Foundation https://www.nsf.gov/ The sponsors played no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: Scott Freeman (SF) began writing curriculum for an educational technology company (Codon Learning Inc.) based on the outcome of this project after the data collection and analysis and original manuscript preparation was complete. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Introduction

Research has shown that active learning increases achievement for all students [ 1 ] and especially for populations underrepresented in STEM [ 2 ]. An important next frontier for continued improvement in student performance—a requirement for the U.S. to meet current and projected needs for qualified STEM professionals [ 3 ]—is to align improvements in active learning exercises and other evidence-based practices with specific learning objectives (LOs), then measure student progress on those LOs with aligned assessments. Work in cognitive sciences comparing the methods of novices and experts in a field has identified a common trait among novice learners: They are not yet capable of evaluating the relative importance of information, meaning that they cannot distinguish less-important from more-important information [ 4 ]. Because they are new to the field, novices lack the experience in problem solving and background in key organizing concepts and frameworks that experts rely on to pick out key information efficiently [ 4 ]. Theory suggests that LOs provided by experts will help novices with this task, as they are explicit statements about the knowledge and skills that are important to master [ 5 ]. By employing the Backward Design framework, instructors begin with clear, specific learning objectives and then work backward to create instructional activities and assessments that are closely aligned with these objectives [ 6 ]. This alignment helps students develop the understanding and skills necessary to enhance their performance. When learning objectives and assessments are aligned, students can focus their studying, benefiting from deliberate practice and becoming more efficient and effective [ 6 ]. This approach ensures that assessments accurately evaluate whether students have achieved the learning objectives. Both elements of the theory predict that careful use of well-designed LOs will increase opportunities for equity and improve student outcomes [ 7 ].

The rapid pace of scientific discoveries has broadened the field of biology, presenting a challenge for biology instructors in deciding what to include in a year-long introductory college biology course [ 8 ]. However, biology educators have made important progress toward the goal of developing a cohesive set of LOs. The Vision and Change initiative [ 9 ], for example, was transformative in life sciences education because it provided a set of overall concepts and competencies and themes that broke with the “cover all the content” approaches that dominated instruction previously. Because it was developed with input from over 500 biology faculty, Vision and Change was presented as a broad national consensus.

The effort to develop comprehensive course design criteria that began with Vision and Change [ 9 ] continued with the publication of the BioCore Guide [ 8 ] and the BioSkills Guide [ 10 ]. Each of these guides added another level of sophistication to the Vision and Change framework by providing statements that elaborated on the general goals laid out in the Vision and Change report. In the BioCore Guide, for example, Vision and Change ’s unifying concept of Evolution is broken down into focused statements such as “Most organisms have anatomical and physiological traits that tend to increase their fitness for a particular environment.” Both guides were developed with input from hundreds of biology instructors and thus—like Vision and Change —represent a broad national consensus.

The publication of the BioCore Guide and BioSkills Guide inspired the development and testing of a series of programmatic-level assessments. These Bio-MAPS instruments are given to students at different points in their undergraduate careers, culminating at graduation, to evaluate the effectiveness of the overall curriculum at particular institutions [ 11 – 14 ].

Thoughtful, well-trained instructors anchor their courses with these types of broad-based, term-long learning outcomes that unify topics in the curriculum. But high- and mid-level course or programmatic goals, like those encapsulated in the Vision and Change report and BioCore Guide and BioSkills Guide, lack the granularity needed for daily or weekly learning objectives ( Fig 1 ). Lesson-level LOs complement programmatic- or course-level learning outcomes by stating what instructors expect students to know and be able to do by the end of a specific class session [ 5 ]. As a result, they are granular enough to be aligned with active learning exercises and individual assessment items.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308545.g001

The role of learning objectives

Many terms in the literature are used interchangeably to describe learning expectations. Examples such as “learning outcomes,” “learning goals,” “course outcomes,” and “course goals” convey similar meaning but lead to confusion for students and instructors alike. To provide consistency and clarity, we follow Orr et al. (2022) by referring to learning objectives, abbreviated as LOs, as statements of what students should know and be able to do at the end of a specific class session and “outcomes” as results that are measured at the end of a unit, course, or program.

Effective curricular design begins by identifying LOs as the desired end result [ 6 ]. This backward design approach encourages faculty to start with clear statements of overall learning goals for a course that are aligned with lesson-level LOs. Ideally, this step would involve a combination of nationally endorsed standards and instructor-written aims that customize the course to the institution and student population. Based on statements of what students should know and be able to do, faculty can then design teaching activities that will support students as they achieve mastery. In addition, faculty can write questions and exercises for formative and summative assessments that align with their LOs and classroom practice. We envision dynamic and reciprocal integrated course design that emphasizes the relationships among LOs, teaching practice, and assessment.

Clear and thoughtful LOs help students better understand lesson and course expectations and the projected directions for their learning [ 5 , 15 ]. In a well-designed science course, students and instructors make explicit use of these LOs, use in-class activities and out-of-class assignments to master them, and evaluate progress with carefully constructed formative and summative assessments [ 16 ]. To maximize student progress, all three course components—the LOs, the learning activities, and the assessments—should be aligned and mutually reinforcing.

In addition, mastering a set of LOs provides a foundation for vertical alignment among courses in a major. This cascade effect means that a failure to meet LOs at the introductory level can impact a student’s ability to understand more challenging concepts later in their undergraduate careers. For example, if students do not master an introductory-level LO on how meiosis generates genetic variation in gametes and offspring, they may not be able to address an LO on evaluating hypotheses for the evolution of sex in an upper-level Genetics or Evolution course.

In all-too-many cases, however, instructors design their courses in the complete absence of LOs and organize instruction around content coverage—often simply following textbook treatments [ 17 ]. When this happens, upper-division instructors and graduate and professional schools may inadvertently re-teach material unnecessarily, as they cannot be confident about what students have already been required to master. When instructors do use LOs—often because they have an administrative requirement to either develop their own or to use learning objectives that are mandated—they can vary in quality and in their level of cognitive challenge. As a result, learning objectives may vary enough across institutions that courses do not support articulation agreements, complicating the ability of transfer students to integrate into a new institution.

Aligning course outcomes with assessments

Research has documented a glaring and persistent mismatch between course-level learning goals and the assessment items actually used in courses, especially exam questions used to assign grades. Even instructors who have been trained in evidence-based instruction [ 18 ] and who embrace the unifying conceptual frameworks outlined in Vision and Change [ 8 , 9 ] and the competencies-based focus of Training Future Physicians [ 19 ] routinely give exams that predominantly assess recall or low-level conceptual understanding [ 20 – 23 ]. Assessments that primarily reward rote memorization do not cultivate competence in the analytical and lifelong learning skills needed to thrive in a 21 st -century economy [ 3 ].

Programmatic assessments, such as the Bio-MAPS assessments [ 11 ], which were developed to assess the effectiveness of a general biology curriculum in teaching the five core concepts outlined by Vision and Change , are an important step in designing a four-year curriculum. However, programmatic assessments such as these are too broad to serve as lesson-level assessments. Developing lesson-level LOs and assessment items that align with broader course LOs remains a major challenge for the community [ 17 , 24 ].

Aligning lesson level LOs with activities and assessments

Introductory Biology for Majors is one of the most consequential courses in undergraduate STEM education, with annual enrollments of several hundred thousand students per year in the United States alone [ 25 ]. To support instructors who want to implement backward design in their course sequence, we facilitated the development of a set of lesson-level LOs that were then evaluated by over 700 instructors from a wide array of institution types. These LOs are designed to be specific enough to guide the design of individual teaching activities and out-of-class assignments and align with individual formative and summative assessment items. By supporting close alignment between LOs, teaching practice, and assessment items, the set of community-endorsed, lesson-level LOs for introductory biology published here completes the course design hierarchy ( Fig 1 ) and supports instructors who want to implement backward course design by aligning LOs with instructional strategies and assessments.

Materials and methods

This study was designed to support our research goal of developing LOs that align with the broader course and programmatic outcomes articulated in Vision and Change [ 9 ]. We also intended for the LOs to support Vision and Change’s general goals of reducing content coverage and rote memorization in introductory biology for majors and placing increased emphasis on higher-order cognitive skills and acquisition of professional competencies—including those articulated in the BioSkills Guide [ 9 , 10 ]. We followed Orr et al., (2022) in terms of best practices in writing LOs, and specifically aimed to make the LOs granular enough that instructors could use them to design a single class session and directed enough that students would be able to write self-test items to support independent study. We also followed established practice in seeking to establish endorsed LOs intended to comprise 75% of an introductory course for majors, leaving 25% for instructors to develop on their own (e.g., [ 26 ]). The 75:25 split is designed to provide instructors with latitude to customize course content for their program and student population, so that courses have a common core of nationally endorsed LOs along with a significant percentage of LOs customized for the local context.

The methods we pursued were intended to mimic, as closely as possible, the approach developed by the authors of the Vision and Change report, the BioCore Guide, the BioSkills Guide, and the ASM Curriculum Guidelines [ 8 – 10 , 27 ]. Specifically, we sought to pair an extensive and iterative development phase that engaged both teaching practitioners and education researchers, with a large national evaluation effort designed to identify a broad national endorsement for core LOs that are essential for all introductory biology courses for majors.

We received written notification from the University of Washington Human Subjects Division stating that this proposed activity is human subjects research that qualifies for exempt status (IRB ID: STUDY00010583). Therefore, this research is exempt from the federal human subjects regulations, including the requirement for IRB approval and continuing review.

Overview of process

This project was divided into two broad phases: a development phase and an evaluation phase ( Fig 2 ). During the development phase, candidate LOs went through multiple rounds of evaluation and revision. In total, there were six different groups of researcher-instructors that participated in the development phase. Each group involved different teams of evaluators, all of whom shared instructional expertise in life sciences content and experience with biology education research.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308545.g002

• Group One was composed of 11 education research scientists who regularly advise the BioInteractive program at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) on curriculum development.
• Group Two consisted of four biology researcher-educators who were recruited because of their extensive background in writing and evaluating LOs.
• Group Three included four experts in survey design, assessment design, and course redesign.
• Group Four was made up of two experts with extensive experience in writing LOs and in assessment design.
• Group Five comprised 20 discipline-based education researchers who had published extensively on LOs, teaching practice, and course transformation efforts.
• Group Six was comprised of this manuscript’s authors (KH, SF).

For clarity, the authors will be referred to as “we” or “authors” and the remaining groups referred to by number (Group One, Group Two, etc.)

Once the development phase was complete, the LOs went through an evaluation process based on distributing a national survey to a convenience sample of instructors who teach introductory biology for majors. These faculty assessed and rated each LO as essential or nonessential for introductory biology for majors’ courses, while recognizing that each faculty member would also contribute their own LOs to customize their course to their institution and student population.

Development phase

The development phase started with a list of over 3000 LOs for introductory major’s biology that had been solicited by colleagues at HHMI’s Science Education program, using their listserv of BioInteractive curriculum developers and users. As Fig 3 shows, the 63 faculty who sent LOs in response to this request from HHMI represented an array of institution types.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308545.g003

We sorted this initial list of candidate LOs into seven units based on the organization and content of several college biology textbooks including two major introductory biology textbooks [ 28 , 29 ]. The units were Biochemistry of Life, Cells, Genetics, Evolution, Biodiversity of Life, Plant and Animal Physiology, and Ecology. The LOs in each unit were then subdivided by topics that corresponded roughly to sections and subsections in these texts.

Once the initial list was organized by topic, we combined redundant statements and removed entries that were either beyond the scope of introductory biology or unrelated to biology content, as judged by the material covered in leading textbooks [ 28 , 29 ] for the course. This filtering process reduced the list of over 3000 candidate learning objectives to about 1200.

Our initial round of screening and organizing candidate LOs continued with a revision step. The need for this work arose when an initial evaluation of the draft LOs raised an important concern: very few LOs from the initial submissions asked students to apply, analyze, evaluate, or synthesize concepts. Stated another way, practices that are considered higher-order cognitive skills (HOCS) on Bloom’s taxonomy of learning were greatly underrepresented in the initial set of LOs. To address this situation, we re-wrote many LOs that focused on the lower-order cognitive skills (LOCS) of recalling vocabulary and understanding concepts with the goal of asking students to apply, analyze, evaluate, or synthesize the stated ideas and skills. After this step, each author independently rated each candidate LO as representing either LOCS or HOCS, paired LOCS and HOCS LOs on the same concept whenever possible, and aligned each LO to one or more of the concepts and competencies articulated in the final Vision and Change Report [ 9 ] as well as one or more statements in the BioCore Guide and BioSkills Guide [ 8 , 10 ]. Finally, the authors met to discuss and reach agreement in each LOCS versus HOCS designation, proposed LOCS-HOCS pairing, and Vision and Change , BioCore Guide, and BioSkills Guide tags.

The candidate LOs that emerged from this initial work were sent to Group One for revision as noted in Fig 2 . Each of the experts in Group One reviewed the wording of every candidate LO, made suggestions for revision, and evaluated each as essential or non-essential for introductory biology for major’s students. Once this step was complete, we revised the learning objectives based on Group One’s feedback.

Additional rounds of critique and revision were completed by the four experts in Group Two, the four experts in Group Three, and the authors using the same process ( Fig 2 ). In total, each LO went through four rounds of revision during the study’s “LO Collection and Revision” step ( Fig 2 ).

To lay the groundwork for a large national survey focused on evaluating whether or not each LO was considered essential for introductory biology, we followed best practices in survey design [ 30 ] and the principles of social design theory during the Survey Design step highlighted in Fig 2 . After developing a preliminary design for the survey in the Qualtrics platform, we engaged Group Three in providing feedback on survey design via written comments and cognitive interviews. We revised the general survey format based on these recommendations and in response to information from think-aloud interviews we conducted with four other colleagues as they took the initial version of the survey. In addition, to minimize cognitive load on respondents and maximize survey responses during the national evaluation step, units were separated into blocks of 18–24 LOs. We added this step based on preliminary data indicating that evaluating a block this size would take an instructor an average of 15 minutes to complete, and that limiting effort to 15 minutes would maximize the quality of responses by minimizing survey fatigue.

To further develop the survey, we had each member of Group Two and Group Three take at least one block of the draft survey and comment on both the survey design and the LOs. We revised both the survey and the LOs based on this feedback, resulting in a final format and structure for the survey instrument.

As a final check prior to the large-scale national survey, the pilot survey was distributed to Groups Four and Five with a request for detailed written feedback on both the survey questions and the LOs themselves. The survey and learning objectives were finalized by the authors based on responses gathered during this pilot survey. This “Content Expert Evaluation” step (see Fig 2 ) closed out the project’s Development phase and resulted in a total of 352 candidate LOs. In total, each of these candidate LOs was assessed and revised an average of 13 times over the course of this work.

Evaluation phase

We invited over 13,000 biology instructors to participate in the national evaluation step. We solicited participation through direct emails and the BioInteractive listserv and encouraged recipients to share the invitation widely. A complete copy of the survey is available in the S1 Text .

Our effort to seek responses from as broad a spectrum of the teaching community as possible was inspired by the methods pioneered in the BioCore Guide [ 8 ] and has been variously described as grassroots, bottom-up, or faculty-first. Research has shown that community-based approaches like this are more effective at promoting buy-in and adoption of a research product than traditional Delphi strategies, which rely on top-down mandates from a small group of experts [ 31 ].

To participate in the survey, respondents were first asked to confirm that they had taught an introductory biology course for majors. Once respondents entered the survey itself, they self-selected a unit to evaluate based on their current or prior teaching experience and expertise. We had broken each unit into 1–3 blocks of LOs, based on the total number assigned to that unit, and participants received one block at random. Respondents then evaluated each LO as “essential” or “not essential” to the course they teach. They were also invited to share any feedback about the content or wording of the LOs they evaluated. Respondents were then given an opportunity to return to the survey start and evaluate an additional block of LOs. Before closing out, the survey also collected institutional and demographic data from each respondent. But to support evaluators who wished to critique the LOs, all surveys were completed anonymously.

It is important to recognize that due to survey formatting constraints, respondents were able to view and evaluate only one block of LOs at a time. As a result, they could not see all of the LOs proposed for an entire unit—a step that we hypothesized would support our goal of gathering data on LOs as “stand-alone” teaching goals. In addition, respondents evaluated each LO as a single item at a time on their computer screens, meaning that they were unaware of the pairing between LOCS and HOCS LOs. Finally, respondents did not see any of the data on alignment with Bloom’s level, Vision and Change Core Concepts and Competencies, BioCore Guide statements, or BioSkills Guide statements.

After our initial solicitation of participants and a preliminary assessment of the completed surveys, we realized that the number of evaluators for the Physiology unit was low. In response, we made a directed appeal to instructors with teaching expertise in animal or plant physiology who were on the BioInteractive listserv and had not already participated in the survey to complete those survey blocks. After including the data from these follow-on respondents, the total number of survey participants exceeded 700. Although the number of evaluators to rate each LO varied widely—from 25–65—the average number of raters for each LO was 38.

Using a national survey, we collected evidence on whether the teaching community considered each of 352 candidate LOs as essential in a one-year introductory biology sequence for majors. Of the 706 evaluators who participated in the survey, 609 provided data on their institution and demography ( Fig 4A ), with 33% of respondents coming from Associate’s degree-granting institutions, 28% from Bachelor’s degree-granting institutions, 14% from Master’s degree-granting institutions, and 25% from Doctoral degree-granting institutions. Although we did not ask whether respondents had full-time or part-time appointments, roughly 64% of respondents stated that they were assistant, associate, or full professors while 35% identified themselves as lecturers, instructors, or teaching faculty ( Fig 4B ). Almost half of the survey participants (46%) had no DBER experience ( Fig 4C ) and almost 57% were female ( Fig 4D ). Slightly over 77% of respondents were white ( Fig 4E ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308545.g004

Binning the data into low, medium, or high support

S1 Data set contains complete data on all 352 of the candidate LOs, including how many instructors evaluated it during the survey, what percentage of evaluators considered it essential, whether the LO requires LOCS or HOCS to master, and which Vision and Change Core Concepts and Competencies, BioCore Guide statements, and BioSkills Guide statements the LO aligns to.

Once this master dataset was assembled, we began data analysis by plotting the percentage of evaluators who had rated each LO as essential, creating a histogram representing responses for all 352 candidate LOs. Visual inspection of this graph revealed distinct break points in the data at 52.1% and 76.0% ( S1 Fig ). After confirming the existence of these breaks with Groups 2 and 3, we divided the data into three bins. We labeled LOs that had been ranked as essential by 52.1% or fewer respondents as “Low,” those considered essential by 52.2% - 76.0% of instructors as “Medium,” and those that were rated essential by 76.1% or more of respondents as “High” ( Fig 5 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308545.g005

Although survey participants were unaware of the LOCS or HOCS designation for the candidate LOs they evaluated, a striking pattern emerged when we separated LOCS from HOCs LOs and graphed the resulting data in the Low, Medium, and High bins. Evaluators were much more likely to rate an LO as essential if it represented a lower-order cognitive skill, and much more likely to rate an LO as non-essential if it represented a higher-order cognitive skill ( Fig 6 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308545.g006

This result was independent of topic area. When we graphed the data from each unit separately, the same pattern held across the majority of the units ( S2 Fig ).

Recommending a set of LOs that are essential for majors biology

This project’s goal was to develop a set of lesson level LOs for a one-year introductory biology sequence that was consistent with programmatic goals articulated in the Vision and Change report and that have been endorsed as essential by a large, national sample of instructors. To support this goal, we recommend that faculty use all of the LOCS LOs that received high endorsement based on percent-essential ratings, and all of the HOCS LOs that received either a medium or high endorsement of percent-essential ratings. Following these guidelines, we recommend a total of 163 of the 352 candidate LOs as the core LOs for introductory biology for majors courses ( Table 1 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308545.t001

To evaluate how this total of 163 would be distributed over a yearlong course, we assumed that instructors would design their course using an average of three lesson level LOs per class session and followed Heil, et al.’s (2023) research indicating an average of 72 class sessions (“lectures”), exclusive of exams and holidays, in a two-semester course. This total of 216 LOs (three per session x 72 class sessions) could then be partitioned into a core set of 163 (~75%) represented by the national endorsement reported in this paper and an additional 53 (~25%) developed by individual instructors or teaching teams to reflect LOs germane to their program and student population.

Over 76% of the recommended learning objectives listed in Table 1 are included in LOCS-HOCS pairings. Unpaired LOs occurred when the natural LOCS LO for a HOCS LO would have consisted of a simple list of terms or other memorized information so was considered implicit; or the HOCS that was proposed was either deemed beyond the scope of introductory biology during the development phase or received low endorsement during the evaluation phase.

There are at least three major and interrelated justifications for using lesson level LOs that are well-written and appropriately scaffolded and framed during instruction [ 5 ]:

• LOs are essential to backward design–widely considered to be the gold standard in course design.
• When directed or guided by instructors, LOs give students a reliable and efficient way to focus their study efforts–enough so that instructors should no longer hear questions stems like, “Do we have to know” or “Will X be on the test? And,
• LOs directly address two salient characteristics of novice learners that have been characterized by cognitive scientists: an inability to distinguish more-important from less-important information, and an inability to see connections between topics or integrate information [ 4 ].

The set of 163 core LOs presented here represents national endorsement for essential content, concepts, and skills. They should support instructional teams that want to introduce or expand the use of LOs in courses while aligning instruction with the national consensus articulated by Vision and Change [ 9 ]. It should also support ongoing efforts to correct the misalignment between course-level learning goals and assessment items that has plagued life sciences education for years [ 22 ].

These LOs complete a longstanding effort to create a cohesive framework for undergraduate biology education, beginning with the seminal Vision and Change report, continuing with development of the BioCore Guide and BioSkills Guide, and now concluding with a nationally endorsed set of lesson-level LOs. Biology educators are now in the enviable position of having clear expectations articulated for what students should know and be able to do when students emerge from an introductory course sequence for majors ( Fig 1 ).

A course designed around these 163 recommended LOs, even when supplemented by individual instructors or teaching teams with an additional 40–50 customized LOs, promises to be radically different from a course designed around textbook content. The leading textbooks for introductory majors biology are 1200–1500 pages long and contain more than 2110 boldfaced glossary words and phrases. Given an average number of class sessions in a canonical 3-quarter or 2-semester course sequence, instructors would need to insist that their students memorize 18–29 new terms every single class session if the goal of the course is to “cover” the textbook. The 163 “core” LOs recommended by the community strip away many of these terms and many of the other details commonly found in textbooks. As a result, our hope is that this national endorsement for LOs will help liberate instructors from what we call “the tyranny of content,” allowing them to re-focus their course on only essential vocabulary and concepts. Most importantly, this allows instructors to devote much more time and effort to the analytical and professional skills that many programs state as their major learning goal [ 21 , 22 ] and that are required for successful careers related to the life sciences.

The role of LOCS and HOCS LOs

Instructors were much more likely to rate an LO as essential if it addressed lower-order cognitive skills (LOCS) as opposed to higher-order cognitive skills (HOCS). This finding is consistent with literature showing that introductory courses for life sciences majors currently emphasize content coverage and memorization [ 21 – 23 ] However, this finding conflicts with repeated calls from education policy leaders for instructors to de-emphasize lower-order cognitive skills and increase emphasis on the analytical and other higher-order skills required for success as a life science professional [ 4 , 9 ].

The pattern of higher endorsement levels for LOCs and lower endorsement levels for HOCS reported in Fig 6 may, however, also reflect the underlying nature of LOCS and HOCS–specifically, the claim that Bloom’s taxonomy of learning is hierarchical [ 32 ]. In many or most cases, the ability to apply concepts in novel situations, analyze processes and data, synthesize information to create something new, and evaluate the quality of hypotheses or evidence–that is, to work at higher cognitive levels–depends on a fundamental understanding of the underlying facts and concepts.

In weighing the balance between using LOCS and HOCS LOs in introductory courses for majors, we follow the national consensus represented in Vision and Change and recommend a “both-and” strategy that recognizes the fundamental importance of LOCS but places a much stronger emphasis on HOCS than is traditional. To implement this approach, we used different criteria for the list of 163 recommended LOs by including HOCS that had a medium level of support as essential while requiring a higher level of support for LOCS. We claim that the relaxed criterion for including HOCS still represents an important national endorsement for what is essential to teach in introductory biology for majors, as medium support indicates affirmation by over 50% of respondents.

Limitations of this study

The LOs that the community of introductory biology instructors developed and recommended through this work focuses on content: vocabulary, concepts, and skills. At the start of the study, we had also intended to develop and evaluate LOs that focused on affect. In particular, we were interested in aspects of emotional and psychological experience that are known to impact retention in STEM and that are considered fundamental to professional development. None of the over 3000 draft LOs that launched the project addressed these affect issues, however, and when we began the process of creating LOs on affect, during the project’s development phase, we realized that it was not feasible to write them at the lesson level. Stated another way, we did not see how affect LOs could be made granular enough to be compatible with the content- and skills-focused, lesson-level LOs developed in this study. Thus, instructors should be aware that LOs recommended here do not address course goals outside of the Vision and Change framework, including course goals relating to affect [ 9 ].

Another limitation of the study concerns the sample of biology instructors who evaluated the 352 candidate LOs. Although we broadcast the appeal for raters as widely as possible, respondents volunteered their time and thus represent a convenience sample and not a random sample of the entire community. Currently we lack the data on the demographics of introductory biology instructors in the U.S. required to assess how representative our sample was. It may be helpful to note, however, that the total of 77% white faculty who evaluated the candidate LOs can be compared to the percentage of white STEM instructors at various institution types in the U.S.: 75% at non-minority-serving institutions, 70.5% at tribal institutions, 68% at Asian-American Native-American and Pacific Islander-serving institutions, 63% at Hispanic-serving institutions, and 27% at Historically Black Colleges and Universities [ 33 ].

Future work

LOs are just one of three elements that must be in place to achieve an integrated course design. Although work on developing evidence-based teaching materials–including pre-class preparatory materials, active learning activities for use in class, and post-class assignments–has progressed rapidly [ 34 ], the third component of course-design, representing formative and summative assessment, is weak. Researchers and practitioners will have a great deal of work to do before instructors have reliable and valid assessment items that align with both the LOs published here and available teaching materials. This is particularly true of assessment items that are machine-gradable and yet require students to apply concepts, analyze processes or data, design experiments, or evaluate claims. It is a challenge to create authentic assessments that test HOCS LOs while providing timely feedback to students, but a challenge that the community needs to meet.

Another important frontier in research concerns student use of lesson-level LOs, and in particular how structured exercises and informal instructor talk can impact students [ 5 ]. Do students use LOs more effectively if instructors make the connection between specific LOs, teaching practices, and assessment items more transparent? Are there ways to structure student use of LOs during self-study and exam preparation? Does the use of LOs make students more efficient and thus effective in terms of using their study time? These questions are all unanswered.

Currently, life science educators also lack a national endorsement for course-level LOs that address aspects of affect and professional and career development relevant to prospective biology majors. If a follow-up study put these course-level statements in place, researchers and practitioners could begin implementing classroom practices and developing assessments capable of supporting student progress on these critically important elements of professional maturation and success.

Finally, this study should support future work on what we see as two extraordinarily challenging, but potentially extraordinarily rewarding, research endeavors:

• Designing and executing a rigorous test of the backward design hypothesis–one that evaluates the claim that integrated course design leads to consistently better student outcomes; and
• Developing learning progressions for particularly important LOs in the set recommended here, and then using an improved understanding of stages in the transition from novice to expert-level understanding to design improved teaching materials and assessment items.

Conclusions

This is the first effort to develop a community-endorsed set of LOs that are comprehensive enough to serve as a core element in designing introductory biology courses for majors. It completes the “organizational chart” of community-endorsed learning goals that began with the publication of the Vision and Change report and continued with the development of the BioCore Guide and BioSkills Guide and should provide additional momentum to ongoing efforts to transform introductory biology courses for majors. Life science educators now have the most comprehensive, nationally endorsed course-design framework of any STEM discipline. Integrating the LOs reported here should help focus courses in productive ways, free instructors from the pressure to “cover it all,” and create consistency and predictability within and across programs and institutions.

As the life sciences advance and as discipline-based education research yields new insights, however, the LOs published here should evolve in response. We look forward to revisions that benefit from new insights in the life sciences and the science of learning, and to efforts that use LOs to support student success.

Supporting information

S1 data set. all locs and hocs candidate los with survey data and tags..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308545.s001

S1 Fig. Learning objectives sorted into eight bins identifies a “natural” 52.1% cut-off.

NOTE: This was reviewed/endorsed by Groups 2 and 3.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308545.s002

S2 Fig. Unit learning objectives separated by LOCS and HOCS into low, medium, and high bins.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308545.s003

S1 Table. Summary table of core learning objectives by unit for introductory biology for majors courses.

*Denotes a HOCS LO paired with two LOCS LOs or a LOCS LO paired with two HOCS LOs.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308545.s004

S1 Text. Survey tool used to collect data on the essentiality of LOs.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308545.s005

Acknowledgments

We thank the following people who were involved in the Development Phase of the grant (listed alphabetically):

Joel Abraham

Tessa Andrews

Norris Armstrong

Holly Basta

Scott Bowling

Janet Branchaw

Marguerite Brickman

Sara Brownell

Carly Busch

Alexa Clemmons

Jake Cooper

Miriam Ferzil

Brian Gibbens

Phil Gibson

Cara Gormally

Austin Heil

Angela Hodgson

Kelly Hogan

Mallory Jackson

Hannah Jordt

Laramie Denise Lemon

Jenny McFarland

Jennifer Momson

Trish Moore

Cesar Nufio

Rebecca Orr

Megan Peterson

Luanna Prevost

Carolyn Pucko

Kim Quillin

Michael Rodriguez

Heather Seitz

Justin Shaffer

Briana Timmerman

Jacqueline Washington

We wish to thank the BioInteractive program, especially Melissa Csikari and Laura Bonetta, for hosting the early planning meetings, sharing the initial list of candidate LOs, introducing us to the education research scientists who advise the BioInteractive program at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and for providing the BioInteractive Listserv.

Special thanks to Alexa Clemmons for sharing her expertise in survey design and knowledge of the Qualtrics Survey software.

Finally, thank you to the instructors listed below, as well as to those who wished to remain anonymous. Over 700 of you heeded the “call to action” and without you, this work would not have been possible.

Sarah Abboud

Sarah A. Arrington

Josh R. Auld

Jordan Baker

Michael Britton

Sue Ellen DeChenne-Peters

Nancy Djerdjian

Eric Engstrom

Lawrence Hobbie

Justin Hoshaw

Kristin M. Lewis

Nicole Lynn McDaniels

Ryan J. Miller

Greg Podgorski

Margaret Saha

Cahleen Shrier

Rachel Smith

Drew Stenesen

Jessica D. Stephens

Alison Styring

Charlie Willis

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