Illustrating Development:

Investigating use of Visuals in Undergraduate Developmental Biology Education, 2023-2024

Completed under the supervision of Dr. Jonathon Stone of McMaster University in the Stoner Lab, this three-part project was designed to investigate the use of visuals in developmental biology education.

As part of this project, I first completed wet-lab studies on sea urchin specimens, then observed and illustrated these specimens, and finally, used my illustrations to design and execute a formal survey of undergraduate students.

Overall, results showed that students responded best to the visually accessible and engaging visuals that depicted the developmental process, as opposed to visuals that were academic in tone or text alone. Continue below for an in-depth look at each step of the research process.

Part 1: Wet-lab Studies and Observation

Throughout this project, I worked with sea urchin larvae. Sea urchins are well-studied models for development, and their developmental process is often presented to students in introductory development classes.

Sea urchin larvae are known to exhibit abnormal development when exposed to higher-than-normal temperatures. I induced abnormal development in a treatment group of larvae by exposing them to a brief heat shock. I then compared the heat-shocked larvae to a control group which developed under ideal conditions. Control larvae developed normally (A-D), while heat-shocked larvae showed signs of abnormal development (E-F).

Part 2: Creating Illustrations

After conducting my heat shock experiment, I created illustrations based on my observations. I started by creating labelled pencil drawings on Procreate, which I then used as the basis for a line-drawn version with an academic tone.

Using Procreate, a simplified and coloured version of the same developmental process was illustrated. The goal here was to make the visual engaging and understandable.

Part 3: Investigating Effectivness Through Survey

The final phase of this project involved the creation and distribution of an anonymous randomized survey targeted toward undergraduate students. The aim was to investigate which visuals, if any, aided in undergraduate students’ understanding of the process of abnormal sea urchin development. 114 undergraduate students were surveyed and presented with one of three treatment questions that explored which form of communication allowed them to best understand abnormal development in sea urchins:

  1. Text-only explanation

  2. Academically toned illustration (“scientific figure”)

  3. Simplified and coloured illustration (“textbook figure”)

Students were asked to analyze the treatment that they were presented with, and then rank how well they understood the concept of abnormal development in sea urchin larvae based on that treatment. Results showed that students presented with the simplified and coloured illustration understood this concept best.

This visualization study helped demonstrate that, in the case of introductory developmental biology education, simplified and engaging illustrations prevail over highly detailed academic illustrations or text alone. These results could help inform how visual resources are designed for students learning introductory development.

Conclusion

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