Abstract:

The scientific poster is a widely used format to promote the communication of research findings in the scientific community. Its incorporation into undergraduate teaching provides students with an early opportunity to develop critical reading, synthesis, and communication skills. This study explores students’ expectations and perceived needs regarding a scientific poster activity introduced in the Enzymology course of the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology degree. A total of 36 students responded to an initial survey at the beginning of the semester, before starting the activity.

Results showed that just over half of class (52.8%) felt confident in their understanding of scientific articles, and the most students (83.3%) had previously prepared a scientific poster. Regarding expectations, 25% of students believed the activity would enhance their scientific reading and interpretation skills, while 30.6% expected to improve their ability to critically analysing scientific literature. In addition, students indicated potential difficulties in summarizing complex information (44.4%) and in finding and selecting scientific articles (22.2%).

To address these challenges, several strategies were implemented prior to the activity to try help students. A theoretical session was conducted to explain how to extract and summarize the key ideas from research articles. During the session, students had the opportunity to work in groups using different examples of articles, exchanging ideas not only with the teacher but also with their classmates. Additionally, an online shared folder was created containing examples from previous years and a selection of sample articles. This tool also allowed students to upload their chosen articles for the poster, providing them the opportunity to receive feedback from the teachers during the activity.

In conclusion, these results underscore the importance of assessing students’ perceptions at the beginning of the learning process to design targeted instructional strategies and improve learning outcomes.

Keywords:

Education research, poster, enzymology.