What are core concepts?
Core concepts are big, important, fundamental ideas, which experts agree
are critical for all students in their discipline to learn, remember,
understand, and apply – in other words, to learn deeply. Core concepts
in other disciplines include ideas such as gravity in physics
(Hestenes, Wells, & Swackhamer, 1992) and homeostasis in
physiology (Michael, Cliff, McFarland, Modell, & Wright, 2017) – these
concepts must be learnt and successfully applied by anyone claiming to
understand these disciplines. Over the past 30 years, disciplines such
as physics (Hestenes et al., 1992), statistics (Allen, Stone, Rhoads, &
Murphy, 2004), information technology (Porter et al., 2019), psychology
(Landrum, 1993; Zechmeister & Zechmeister, 2000), physiology (McFarland
et al., 2017; Michael et al., 2017), and microbiology (Marbach-Ad et
al., 2009; Merkel, 2012) have developed research-based lists of core
concepts and related assessments of concept attainment.
In biology, for example, a large, coordinated approach led to the
development of a set of core concepts in the early 2000s. The US
National Science Foundation and American Association of Advancement in
Science brought together many educators to produce five core concepts of
biology within a Vision and Change Manifesto (Brewer & Smith,
2011). Subsequent work led to the development of resources for biology
educators to incorporate the teaching and assessment of these core
concepts into their curricula (Brownell, Freeman, Wenderoth, & Crowe,
2014). Sub-disciplines within biology, including physiology and
microbiology (Hott et al., 2002; Marbach-Ad et al., 2009; Merkel, 2012)
have since identified further, more specific core concepts.