AN ALTERNATIVE STRATEGY TO ANALYZE THE CONTENTS OF BIOCHEMISTRY INTRODUCTORY COURSES

• Autor(a) principal: Miskalo, A.K.
• Data de Publicação: 2008
• Outros Autores: Torres, B.B.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista de Ensino de Bioquímica
• Texto Completo: http://bioquimica.org.br/revista/ojs/index.php/REB/article/view/70
• topic: Bloom’s Taxonomy, minimum curriculum, written tests analysis.

A common problem  educators  from  different areas face  is  to  fit the increasing  amount  of information  with the maintenance  and/or,  not seldom,  a decrease in the class load of their courses. This actual situation  necessarily forces the educator  to severely select the topics to be worked out. In the cur rent scenario of most teaching institutions, this decision  is  taken by the teacher.  In order to do this, a  list of the topics considered to be essential  for an appropriate biochemistry course is necessary. Taking for granted that questions from biochemistry courses tests reflect  the topics  considered most relevant by teachers,  questions from different courses offered by Biochemistry Department of USP were analyzed. The objective of this analysis  was  to  answer two main questions, namely (1)  Which is the exte nt and  depth  of the common topics  in  biochemistry  introductory courses? and (2)  Are there (and ,  if  there are,  which are they?)  specific topics  for  different careers?  The  method we adopted was to verify  the demanded topics  in  written tests and  to  classify  their  cognitive level according to Bloom’s Taxonomy.  The most recurring topics found are Protein Structure and Metabolism Regulation. The results indicate a strong predominance of  low-level categories  (Knowledge e Comprehension),  with little  occurrence  of high-level categories (from Application on).  It is expected, from further development of this study,  to outline  the topics considered  relevant  to  set the basis for  the discussion  on the establishment of a minimum curriculum for biochemistry courses. Key words: Bloom’s Taxonomy, minimum curriculum, written tests analysis.