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Elisabeth Schussler

Research Interests

Undergraduate biology education and botanical education

The development of effective educational practices is reliant on empirical data about student learning; my research employs qualitative and quantitative research methods to collect these data from students.

One of my primary interests is undergraduate learning about the nature of science.  The nature of science encompasses the values and beliefs that underlie scientific ideas and practices, and is critical for student scientific literacy.  Yet nature of science is rarely taught in school, or is presented in such a stereotypical manner as to be counter-productive (e.g. scientists are completely objective, all scientists use one scientific method, science doesn’t employ creativity).  I have interviewed biology majors from their sophomore to their senior years to understand how nature of science understanding develops in these students, and implemented a new curriculum in an introductory biology class to improve student nature of science understanding.  The goal of this research is to create biology curricula that introduce students to the true nature of science early in their undergraduate careers. 

Another research interest is student learning about plants.  Plants often suffer in comparison to animals both culturally and educationally, resulting in students who know less about and are less interested in plants as compared to animals.  I have documented differentials in college student abilities to name and recall plant images as compared to animal images, as well as elementary student struggles with plant knowledge.  My current research is using visual attention models to explore these differences between plant and animal knowledge, with a goal to design curricula that can improve student learning about plants.

Education

  • 1997 - Ph.D., Louisiana State University

Selected Publications

  • Bautista, Nazan U. and Elisabeth E. Schussler.  In Press.  Implementation of an Explicit and Reflective Pedagogy in Introductory Biology Laboratories.  Journal of College Science Teaching.
  • Link-Pérez, Melanie A., Vanessa H. Dollo, Kirk M. Weber, and Elisabeth E. Schussler.  In Press.  What’s in a Name: Differential Labeling of Plant and Animal Photographs in Two Nationally-Syndicated Elementary Science Textbook Series.  International Journal of Science Education
  • Schussler, Elisabeth E.  2008.  From Flowers to Fruits: How Children’s Books Represent Plant Reproduction.  International Journal of Science Education 30(12): 1677-1696.
  • Schussler, Elisabeth E. and Lynn Olzak.  2008.  It’s Not Easy Being Green: Student Recall of Plant and Animal Images.Journal of Biological Education 42(3): 112-118.
  • Schussler, Elisabeth E., Lisette E. Torres, Stephen Rybczynski, Gary W. Gerald, Emy Monroe, Purbasha Sarkar, Dhan Shahi, and Muna A. Osman.  2008. Transforming the Teaching of Science Graduate Students Through Reflection.  Journal of College Science Teaching 38(1): 32-36.
  • Schussler, Elisabeth and Jeff Winslow.  2007.  Drawing on Students’ Knowledge.  Science and Children 44(5): 40-44.
Elisabeth Schussler

Contact Information

Elisabeth Schussler
Assistant Professor and Director of Biology Teaching and Learning
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
402A Hesler
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996-1610

Phone: (865) 974-6825
Fax: (865) 974-4057
Email: eschuss@utk.edu