Writing Matters: Writing-to-Learn Activities Increase Undergraduate Performance in Cell Biology

Biology educators need instructional strategies to improve student learning outcomes, especially in foundational science courses, in which students are presented vast amounts of content. Writing-to-learn (WTL) tasks in lecture courses can help biology students increase performance and use abstract concepts in writing-to-communicate (WTC) tasks. Our WTL interventions included the use of graphic organizers, iterative writing, peer evaluation, and self-evaluation administered in an introductory cell biology course for molecular bioscience majors. We tested three WTL treatments—lots of writing, some writing, and little writing—and compared them with no-writing control sections. We examined the effects of WTL on performance (essay-question grades on exams and total exam scores) and WTC (content analysis). WTL was associated with (a) increased performance, particularly for students identifying as first-generation college students and minorities, and (b) increased use of abstract concepts in WTC tasks over the course of the semester in two WTL interventions.