As in many of the nations institution's of higher education, the introductory biology course at Indiana University of Pennsylvania has the reputation of being very difficult. For decades the course has been entirely teacher-centered during each of its three hour-long lectures and two hour laboratory each week of two 15 week semesters. Under the guise of CETPPA, several professors teaching the course at IUP have worked to transform introductory biology to a student-centered, constructivist offering. To compare the new approach with the previous traditional one, different sections of introductory biology were taught with either the old or new method. The OBJECTIVE of the undertaking was to measure if pupils taught with student-centered instruction methods would perform as well or better than pupils taught with teacher-centered instruction methods. (PROCEDURE)To document the differences in the approaches, all sections of students were videotaped during their classes and evaluated by one of the researchers. The researchers appraisals and videotapes for each class were EVALUATED with the Flanders Systematic Class Interaction Form to determine teacher-centered and student-centered ratios as well as the Gallagher-Parker Secondary Teacher Analysis Matrix to determine the location of the each group on a didactic-constructivist continuum. Pretest-posttest analyses were also taken for each group with the Moore Science Attitudinal Inventory and the Okey-Dillashaw Test of Integrated Processing Skills. Class attendance and test/quiz average were also statistically compared between the groups.

Outcome: While analysis is proceeding in the lecture component of introductory biology, the first year of the laboratory segment of the program has been completed. The results are startling! Significant differences (p>.05) between the populations are found on both the Flanders and the Gallagher matrices, class attendance, test/quiz scores and student science attitude. Significance was not found in the Integrated Processing Skills test.