Barriers to integration of bioinformatics into undergraduate life sciences education: A national study of US life sciences faculty uncover significant barriers to integrating bioinformatics into undergraduate instruction

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 14; no. 11; p. e0224288
• Main Authors: Williams, Jason J., Drew, Jennifer C., Galindo-Gonzalez, Sebastian, Robic, Srebrenka, Dinsdale, Elizabeth, Morgan, William R., Triplett, Eric W., Burnette, James M., Donovan, Samuel S., Fowlks, Edison R., Goodman, Anya L., Grandgenett, Nealy F., Goller, Carlos C., Hauser, Charles, Jungck, John R., Newman, Jeffrey D., Pearson, William R., Ryder, Elizabeth F., Sierk, Michael, Smith, Todd M., Tosado-Acevedo, Rafael, Tapprich, William, Tobin, Tammy C., Toro-Martínez, Arlín, Welch, Lonnie R., Wilson, Melissa A., Ebenbach, David, McWilliams, Mindy, Rosenwald, Anne G., Pauley, Mark A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 18.11.2019; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Agricultural education; Analysis; Biochemistry; Bioinformatics; Biological research; Biology; Biology - education; Biology and Life Sciences; College campuses; College students; Computational biology; Computational Biology - education; Computer and Information Sciences; Computer science; Curricula; Curriculum; Data analysis; Deterrents; Education; Faculty - statistics & numerical data; Female; Genomes; Genomics; Humans; Integration; Khan, Sal; Laboratories; Learning; Life sciences; Male; Motivation; People and Places; Polls & surveys; Research and Analysis Methods; Science education; Social Sciences; Students - psychology; Study and teaching; Surveys; Surveys and Questionnaires - statistics & numerical data; United States; United States; United States > US; California
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0224288

Bioinformatics, a discipline that combines aspects of biology, statistics, mathematics, and computer science, is becoming increasingly important for biological research. However, bioinformatics instruction is not yet generally integrated into undergraduate life sciences curricula. To understand why we studied how bioinformatics is being included in biology education in the US by conducting a nationwide survey of faculty at two- and four-year institutions. The survey asked several open-ended questions that probed barriers to integration, the answers to which were analyzed using a mixed-methods approach. The barrier most frequently reported by the 1,260 respondents was lack of faculty expertise/training, but other deterrents-lack of student interest, overly-full curricula, and lack of student preparation-were also common. Interestingly, the barriers faculty face depended strongly on whether they are members of an underrepresented group and on the Carnegie Classification of their home institution. We were surprised to discover that the cohort of faculty who were awarded their terminal degree most recently reported the most preparation in bioinformatics but teach it at the lowest rate.