In undergraduate biology laboratory courses, laboratory reports can be a useful tool for teaching scientific writing, integration of source material, and information literacy; however, these teaching objectives are at times undermined by students' plagiarism. Laboratory instructors often use similarity-matching software to detect plagiarism in laboratory reports, yet similarity hits detected with such software remain poorly characterized. In the upper division molecular biology laboratory course described here, Turnitin® routinely detected dozens of similarity hits in laboratory reports. To determine whether this abundance of similarity hits was indicative of widespread plagiarism, we analyzed similarity hits detected in 255 laboratory reports written by 135 students. Only a small minority of Turnitin® similarity matches were problematic, but over half of the laboratory reports contained at least one problem with incorporation of scientific sources (e.g., laboratory manual and scientific articles). We identified four common types of such writing problems: patchwriting, technical parroting, copying, and falsification of sources. In 18% of the laboratory reports, we detected an alarmingly superficial use of primary literature. Most of the source incorporation problems did not rise to the level of plagiarism. As a result of this study, we recommend changes in scientific writing instruction and a transition to laboratories providing more authentic research experiences. © 2019 International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 47(4):370-379, 2019.

Primary literature offers rich opportunities to teach students how to think like a scientist, but the challenges students face when they attempt to read research articles are not well understood. Here, we present an analysis of what masters students perceive as the most challenging aspects of engaging with primary literature. We examined 69 pairs of pre- and postcourse responses from students enrolled in a masters-level course that offered a structured analysis of primary literature. On the basis of these responses, we identified six categories of challenges. Before instruction, techniques and experimental data were the most frequently identified categories of challenges. The majority of difficulties students perceived in the primary literature corresponded to Blooms lower-order cognitive skills. After instruction, conclusions were identified as the most difficult aspect of primary literature, and the frequency of challenges that corresponded to higher-order cognitive skills increased significantly among students who reported less experience with primary literature. These changes are consistent with a more competent perception of the primary literature, in which these students increasingly focus on challenges requiring critical thinking. Students difficulties identified here can inform the design of instructional approaches aimed to teach students how to critically read scientific papers.

The ability to think analytically and creatively is crucial for success in the modern workforce, particularly for graduate students, who often aim to become physicians or researchers. Analysis of the primary literature provides an excellent opportunity to practice these skills. We describe a course that includes a structured analysis of four research papers from diverse fields of biology and group exercises in proposing experiments that would follow up on these papers. To facilitate a critical approach to primary literature, we included a paper with questionable data interpretation and two papers investigating the same biological question yet reaching opposite conclusions. We report a significant increase in students' self-efficacy in analyzing data from research papers, evaluating authors' conclusions, and designing experiments. Using our science-process skills test, we observe a statistically significant increase in students' ability to propose an experiment that matches the goal of investigation. We also detect gains in interpretation of controls and quantitative analysis of data. No statistically significant changes were observed in questions that tested the skills of interpretation, inference, and evaluation.