Teaching Tools and Strategies

A Journal Club Project to Promote Interpreting and Presenting Information From the Primary Scientific Literature

Author(s): Patrick W. Cafferty†*

Emory University

Editor: Audrey Chen Lew

Published online:

Courses: Developmental BiologyDevelopmental Biology NeurobiologyNeurobiology

Keywords: primary literature journal club Science Communication feedback Peer review group work Oral presentation Process skills Peer evaluation Developmental neurobiology

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Abstract

Resource Image

Many undergraduate students receive little guidance on how to critically read, interpret data within, or present information from the primary scientific literature before they begin senior independent research experiences or enter professional or graduate school. To provide guidance on reading and formally presenting scientific information, I incorporated a two-part Journal Club Project into my 400-level developmental neurobiology class. In this project, students worked in teams throughout the semester to present primary scientific literature to the rest of the class and incorporate peer and instructor feedback into their work. Student work was facilitated by different grading rubrics for the two parts of the Journal Club Project. Each of these grading rubrics contained elements to guide the process of delivering and the presentation of scientific content within student talks. Here, I will provide a detailed description of and share my instructions and grading rubrics for the Journal Club Project.

Primary Image: Students delivering a journal club presentation. Two students incorporating peer evaluation feedback from a past talk into their final Journal Club Project presentation.

Citation

Cafferty PW. 2024. A Journal Club Project to Promote Interpreting and Presenting Information From the Primary Scientific Literature. CourseSouce 11. https://doi.org/10.24918/cs.2024.23

Article Context

Reading and Interpreting the Primary Scientific Literature

The ability to critically read and evaluate original research published in the primary scientific literature is vitally important for undergraduate students (15). However, the high density of information and formal language contained within the primary scientific literature poses a challenge for inexperienced readers (6, 7). I have adopted two approaches to help students read and interpret primary scientific literature articles in my 400-level developmental neurobiology course: a Collaborative Annotation Project (CAP) and a Journal Club Project. During CAP, students use web-based software to collaboratively annotate 7 recently published primary scientific literature articles directly related to course topics. I have reported upon my use of CAP in a past CourseSource paper (8). Here, I describe a two-part journal club assignment, share detailed instructions and grading rubrics for this project, and report on student feedback on this work.

What Are Journal Clubs and Why Are They Used?

Journal clubs involve regular meetings of individuals who gather to discuss peer-reviewed, primary scientific literature published in journals (9). The practices of journal clubs vary; however, many typically involve group members taking turns to present recently published primary scientific literature to the club (10). Journal club presentations may involve summaries of a primary scientific literature article including a critique of the methods used and an analysis of the data obtained by the authors, as well as a description of the strengths, weaknesses, and potential impact of the study (11).

The first documented formal journal club, organized by Dr. William Osler in 1875, served to make expensive journals available to medical trainees at McGill University in Montréal, Canada (12). Modern journal clubs aim to help members keep abreast of new information in the primary scientific literature, evaluate and critique data, discuss new approaches for incorporation into their own research, and develop and refine their facilitation and presentation skills (1315). Journal clubs are used in a variety of clinical settings such as occupational therapy (16), nursing (17), pharmacy (18), and family medicine (19); biological disciplines such as anatomy (20), bioinformatics (21), and microbiology and immunology (22); and in science education (e.g., the Emory University Science Education Research Journal Club [ScERJ] and the University of Oregon Science Teaching Journal Club). This widespread usage of journal clubs in the training and continuing education of clinicians, allied health professionals, scientists, and science educators has inspired many instructors to adapt this approach for the undergraduate classroom.

Journal Club Assignments in the Undergraduate Classroom

Journal club assignments have been introduced into various undergraduate biology classes where students may present or discuss primary scientific literature articles in part or in their entirety. For example, biology undergraduate students have individually presented a single primary scientific literature article of their choice at the end of the semester in an upper-level developmental biology class (23); discussed instructor-assigned primary scientific literature articles within small groups and with the whole class in a 200-level microbiology course (24); and provided a written analysis and participated in an in-class discussion of assigned portions of faculty-selected primary scientific literature articles in a 200-level genetics course (25). Undergraduate students in my 400-level developmental neurobiology course work on a journal club project of two parts. In part 1, students work in instructor-assigned teams of four members to share the task of preparing and presenting an instructor-chosen primary scientific literature article to the class. In part 2, students continue working within their groups to present portions of recently published primary scientific literature articles of their choice at the end of the semester. In addition, students incorporate both instructor and peer-evaluation feedback from their part 1 presentation into their part 2 talk to improve their work. See Table 1 for a comparison of parts 1 and 2 of the Journal Club Project.

Table 1. Comparison of parts 1 and 2 of the Journal Club Project. Differences between parts 1 and 2 of the Journal Club Project are highlighted including the choice of primary scientific literature article, duration of presentation, and incorporation of feedback into talk. The percentage of journal club presentation grade determined by the process of delivering the talk is 50% or greater for both parts 1 and 2 to emphasize the importance of process skills during this project.

Journal Club Project Part #1 Part #2
When talks take place Throughout the semester (Weeks 5–15) During the final two class periods of the semester (Week 16)
Choice of primary scientific literature article Instructor-assigned Student-chosen
Meeting with instructor before talk Required Recommended
Duration of talk (minutes) 30–40 15–20
Incorporation of instructor and peer feedback into talk Not applicable Required
Percentage of presentation grade determined by process of delivering talk (%) 50 56
Percentage of presentation grade determined by scientific content of talk (%) 50 44
Percentage of final course grade (%) 25 20

To encourage student buy-in, defined by Cavanagh et al. (26) as “a colloquial term that describes individuals’ feelings in relation to a new way of thinking or behaving,” I follow recommendations by Lutes (27) and Tharayil et al. (28) to include an overview of the project in my syllabus, and I describe the purpose and expectations of the project on the first day of class. In addition, I explain how completion of the Journal Club Project helps students meet the following course-level learning objectives:

  1. I can describe key experiments within and interpret and draw conclusions from experimental data in primary scientific literature articles.

  2. I can communicate scientific hypotheses, procedures, and results accurately and effectively through oral presentations.

  3. I can communicate by writing specific, actionable feedback on scientific presentations.

  4. I can incorporate feedback to improve scientific communication.

Similarly, work by Finelli et al. (29) has revealed that explanation of the purpose and expectations of a course and its classroom activities serves to reduce student resistance to active learning approaches. Finally, on the first day of class I show students examples of journal clubs both described in the primary scientific literature (1622) and that I personally engage in (for example, ScERJ) and I explain how I have benefited from my journal club participation at different career stages. Through informal feedback and survey responses, most of my students have appreciated the fact that the Journal Club Project is an activity that helps them in their current independent research experiences and that they will likely encounter again in the future during professional or graduate school. Thus, the up-front, explicit description of the purpose and expectations of a widely used activity relevant to the career goals of my students helps to promote buy-in for the Journal Club Project.

Course Organization, Team Formation, and Introduction to Primary Scientific Literature

In fall 2023, the first 4 weeks of developmental neurobiology involved lectures on experimental methods and animal model systems used in the field, as well as an introduction to the primary scientific literature, outlined on the timeline of course events in Table 2. Throughout the remainder of the semester, we examined seven topics of developmental neurobiology including: neural induction; polarity and segmentation; genesis and migration; determination and differentiation; axon guidance and targeting; naturally occurring cell death; and synaptogenesis and the refinement of synaptic connections. Each of these topics were introduced with 1–2 lectures punctuated with polling and discussion questions. Next, a team of 4 students presented an instructor-chosen primary scientific literature article on that topic as the first part of the Journal Club Project. Students worked in these instructor-assigned teams throughout the semester to prepare and deliver journal club presentations and to provide peer evaluations for the journal club talks delivered by other teams.

Table 2. Timeline of events for developmental neurobiology course. Major course events are shown in the course timeline including when introductory lectures, student group formation, and an introduction to primary scientific literature and the Journal Club Project take place. Weeks 5–15 follow a repeating structure where the instructor delivers 1–2 lectures of background information and student groups deliver a journal club presentation and share peer evaluation feedback for each of seven course topics.

Week # Course Events Type of Event Facilitator
1–4 Introduction to experimental methods and animal model systems Lecture Instructor
3 Add/drop/swap period ends Class registration Not applicable
3 Assignment of students to teams Course organization Instructor
4 Introduction to the primary scientific literature In-class group activity Instructor
4 Example Journal Club presentation of Moreno-Jimenez et al. (32) paper Journal club presentations Instructor
Weeks 5–15 Have a Repeating Structure to Examine 7 Course Topics
5–15 1–2 lectures/topic Lecture Instructor
Journal Club Project part 1 presentation of primary scientific literature article/topic Journal club presentations Student groups
Intergroup peer evaluation by student groups in audience/topic Peer evaluation  
Intragroup peer evaluation by individual student presenters/topic Peer evaluation  
16 Journal Club Project part 2 presentations Journal club presentations Student groups
16 Intergroup and intragroup peer evaluation of Journal Club Project part 2 presentations Peer evaluation  

I placed students in groups during the third week of class following the conclusion of the Add/Drop/Swap period, a time at the beginning of the semester when students may change their course enrollment for any reason without penalty. Work by Rusticus and Justus (30) revealed students prefer instructor-formed teams as this is a transparent method that eliminates the stress of having to choose teammates. Similarly, Rosser (31) suggested student formation of groups can inhibit the learning of members of underrepresented groups. I formed teams based on responses to a student survey completed during class-time (Supporting File S1). When making teams, I ensured every group included members majoring in biology and in neuroscience and behavioral biology (NBB) as these students take different coursework related to various aspects of developmental neurobiology. For instance, students majoring in biology have taken upper-level courses in genetics, cell biology, or developmental biology while NBB majors have taken many upper-level courses in neurobiology. I also made sure every team had at least one member who had completed at least two semesters of independent laboratory research and a member who was experienced and comfortable reading primary scientific literature.

To introduce the primary scientific literature, students were asked to read an article by Moreno-Jimenez et al. (32) before coming to class during the fourth week. Students began this class by discussing the content of their reading and what approaches were helpful for reading the primary scientific literature article within their teams. Next, groups were asked to read a short article entitled, “How to (seriously) read a scientific paper.” Students were asked as a group to identify advice they found helpful in this article and would adopt in their own reading. Finally, groups shared their insight and advice for reading the primary scientific literature from their own experiences and the provided article with the whole class. At the end of class, students were introduced to the collaborative annotation of primary scientific literature articles using Hypothesis annotation software, given detailed instructions and a grading rubric, and asked to annotate the Moreno-Jimenez et al. (32) paper. This served as an introduction to the CAP described in Cafferty (8).

Journal Club Project Part 1

Instructions, Grading Rubric, and Primary Scientific Literature Article Selection

Students were provided instructions and grading rubrics for the Journal Club Project on the first day of class to inform their enrollment decisions during the Add/Drop/Swap class change period (Supporting Files S2–S5). I reviewed instructions for the first part of the Journal Club Project, available as Supporting File S2, and presented an example journal club talk on the primary scientific literature article by Moreno-Jimenez et al. (32) during the fourth week of class. Presenting a primary scientific literature article that the class has previously read (described above, during the introduction to primary scientific literature) allowed students an opportunity to identify what additional information was needed beyond the primary scientific literature article for the talk and time to focus on how material was being presented.

Journal Club Project part 1 presentations were assessed using a grading rubric with equal points awarded for the content and the process of delivering the talk, available as Supporting File S3. I developed this rubric based on feedback I had given students over the past four offerings of the course and the elements of effective scientific presentations described by Waljee (33). The content of Journal Club Project part 1 talks highlighted by the grading rubric include the following: a review of relevant background material, including information from previously published work; the research questions explored within the primary scientific literature article; sufficient detail of the methods used in the primary scientific literature article for the audience to understand the data; the experimental results of the primary scientific literature article; conclusions based on the results; strengths and weaknesses of the work; and future directions within the field. Students should also be able to answer questions posed by their classmates and instructor at the end of their talk. Required features of presentation delivery indicated by the grading rubric include the following: giving a well-organized presentation that contains all the necessary information for the audience to understand the research study; slides that are prepared in a clear and effective manner; speech at an appropriate speed and volume for the audience to follow along; and a well-coordinated talk given effectively by a team. Journal Club Project part 1 presentations should last between 30–40 minutes.

Ideal primary scientific literature articles for part 1 of the Journal Club Project are directly related to course topics, have been published within the past 5 years, and are manageable in terms of length and complexity to present in a 30–40 minute period. In general, primary scientific literature articles with no more than 7 main figures and a limited number of different experimental techniques work well for student presentations. In addition, students are more comfortable presenting primary scientific literature articles that feature widely studied model systems, such as the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster), the zebrafish (Danio rerio), or the mouse (Mus musculus) (see 3436 for examples). When students indicate on their group formation survey (Supporting File S1) that they have already used a model system during past or current research experiences, I place them into teams that will most benefit from their insights. Finally, primary scientific literature articles with findings that contradict the results of others, for example recent articles on human adult hippocampal neurogenesis (32, 37) or challenge long-held dogma, such as the role of Netrin-1 in midline crossing by commissural neurons (38, 39), lead to lively classroom discussions.

Intergroup and Intragroup Peer Evaluation

Following each Journal Club Project part 1 presentation, students in the audience met with their teams and completed a group peer evaluation of the talk, called an “intergroup peer evaluation.” During intergroup peer evaluations, groups were instructed to give specific and actionable feedback while describing presenters’ strengths, making recommendations for improvement, and explaining insights they gained from the presentation (a strengths, improvement, and insights [SII] report [40]). Sample SII feedback is shown in Table 3. In addition, student groups also completed a copy of the Journal Club Project part 1 grading rubric to become familiar with the tool that will be used to grade their own presentations. Intergroup peer evaluations were due within 24 hours of the Journal Club talk. This allowed me to compile and anonymize all SII reports for inclusion with my own feedback and grade for the group being assessed. In addition, following their talk, individual members of the presentation team submitted peer evaluations of their teammates as an “intragroup peer evaluation.” Here students described how each team member, including themselves, contributed to the project. The intragroup peer evaluation served the dual-purpose of self-reflection and provided an opportunity for students to share whether all team members contributed equally to the preparation and presentation of their work.

Table 3. Sample intergroup peer evaluation feedback. Selected strengths, improvement, and insights (SII) report responses that describe presenters’ strengths, make suggestions and recommendations for improvement, and explain insights gained from journal club presentations are shown. Audience members complete an SII report as part of their intergroup peer evaluation feedback following every journal club talk.

SII Category Selected Feedback
Strengths
  • We gained a better understanding of the purpose of the study when Group 1 provided three relevant studies and related them to what we learned in class.

  • The objectives were very clear and concise, and it was helpful that this same slide came back throughout the presentation and highlighted the next objective that the presentation was about to cover. It helped us know where we were in terms of the paper/presentation and relate the concepts back to the big picture.

  • Inclusion of many figures and diagrams that make content easy to follow and digest. For example, the use of self-made figures in the methods to help understanding the cre/lox system was creative and helpful. 

  • All group members were able to answer questions well, showing that they all had a strong understanding of the paper.

Improvements
  • Simplify abbreviations or technical terms to make the content easier to follow and understand. For example, the future directions slide said “Shh:cre;ntn1fl/fl” when something like “netrin knockout” would have been more meaningful/easier to follow along.

  • The intro could have connected more to class materials to help with understanding the paper better. For example, referencing what we learned about DCC, netrin, and slit/robo signaling would have helped relate our knowledge to the paper, further facilitating our understanding.

  • You could more consistently use informative titles for your slides. For example, for one of your results slides it was titled “Fig 1B and C” which doesn’t really provide helpful info for the audience. In contrast, your slide on Fig 3 provides a more helpful title.

  • Engage the audience more via eye contact, turning toward the class, moving around rather than standing in one spot.

  • When explaining the visualization/immunostaining of the cells the group members just said that certain experimental groups ‘didn’t look right’ but we think they could have expanded on how and why its morphology was different than the control groups.

Insights
  • We learned a lot about the process of the presentation. For instance, we learned how prepared we need to be to answer questions at the end. We will need to be able to connect the paper to outside research. In addition, we think that meeting in person would be helpful to practice and run through the presentation. 

  • We learned that in making our preparation, we need to be sure we are able to explain all parts of any figures presented, ensuring also that all figures we choose to include are relevant to the presentation.

  • We learned that in making our presentation, we need to provide digestible and understandable background information that is needed to understand later slides (abbreviations, notation, “commonly known” procedures such as Western blot etc.)—don’t assume everyone already knows, especially when presenting results of these experiments.

  • Utilizing individual parts of figures to answer proposed questions in the paper allows the presentation to flow considerably well.

Journal Club Project Part 2

Part 2 of the Journal Club Project provided students an opportunity to further explore a developmental neurobiology topic of their choosing in greater depth, with instructions available as Supporting File S4. Students in my developmental neurobiology class have used the website PubMed to search a database of biomedical abstracts in many of their prerequisite classes and are comfortable looking for primary scientific literature on their own. When necessary, librarians from our Health Sciences Library offer many helpful resources for students having difficulty with a literature search, including offering one-on-one appointments and coming to class to deliver workshops on searching databases of primary scientific literature.

Allowing students a choice of topic in part 2 of the Journal Club Project is consistent with evidence that students are more engaged in journal clubs that have less faculty involvement (41) and when they select the primary scientific literature articles (22). In the past, teams have selected primary scientific literature for their second presentation related to topics of their first journal club presentation, mechanisms of disease that arise during development such as holoprosencephaly (42), and relevant topics not examined in the course in detail, including mechanisms of regeneration following traumatic brain injury (43). The six student groups delivered their talks during the final two class periods and had less time to present (15–20 minutes) compared to during their first journal club presentation (30–40 minutes), as shown in Table 1. Thus, students needed to select only the most important experiments and data from their primary scientific literature articles to present. In addition, student groups were required to identify three suggestions for improvement from their compiled SII reports to incorporate into their final talk, giving them a chance to improve upon their scientific presentation skills on areas of their choosing. Journal Club Project part 2 presentations were assessed using the part 2 grading rubric, available as Supporting File S5. This rubric is similar to the part 1 grading rubric and includes an additional content category for connecting the presentation topic to course material and/or the developmental neurobiology field and a process category for the selection and implementation of recommendations for improvement from the first journal club talk.

Instructor Assessment

The Journal Club Project grading rubrics were a newly introduced resource into my course during the fall 2023 semester that greatly facilitated my ability to assess presentations. In the past, I wrestled with determining what exactly was the numerical point value for the observed characteristics of group presentations and making sure I consistently assigned points to groups that presented at different times over a 10-week period. Using the grading rubrics helped me ensure that points were awarded in a consistent manner that was transparent to students. Importantly, in addition to providing students with a grade broken down by rubric category, I also provided detailed, actionable feedback. For example, in response to a group that did not provide an explanation of the process of immunofluorescence in their first journal club presentation (earning a score of 2/3 in the Presentation Content – Methods section of the Journal Club Project Part 1 rubric), I wrote, “Providing a more detailed explanation of the immunofluorescence method used by the authors of this paper may help your audience to better understand the data being presented. You could, for example, present a figure from a methods paper on immunofluorescence like that by Im et al. (44) and explain the method in a few sentences before showing and explaining data generated using immunofluorescence.”

Assessment of the Journal Club Project

To assess the impact of the Journal Club Project during the fall 2023 semester, students were given a survey before the project began during the fourth week of class and at the conclusion of the course during the final class period. This survey contained both quantitative and qualitative questions about reading and presenting information from the primary scientific literature and the study protocol was approved by the Emory University Internal Review Board under exempt status (IRB ID: STUDY00006780). Preliminary quantitative analysis suggests students’ confidence on evaluating and presenting information from the primary scientific literature increased during the semester (unpublished data). A detailed analysis of these data is currently underway and will be reported in future work. Notably, pre-Journal Club Project survey results revealed many students had not previously received support to read the primary scientific literature. For example, one student wrote, “We were mostly told to read them without any helpful tips on how or training on primary literature reading.” In addition, only 65% percent of the class agreed with the statement, “I have received training to read primary scientific literature articles” (n = 22 survey respondents). Thus, incorporating structured activities to promote reading and interpretation of primary scientific literature may be helpful for senior students in 400-level courses. Indeed, at the end of semester, one student wrote, “I presented a journal club-style presentation last week for my grad class, and I received really positive feedback from my professors and classmates. Our assignments like reviewing research papers and creating presentations really helped build my confidence to present scientific work, so thank you!!”

Discussion

The goal of the Journal Club Project is to help students develop and practice vital skills needed for their future studies and professional careers. In fall 2023, most students enrolled in my developmental neurobiology class were senior biology or NBB majors who were already accepted or in the process of applying to graduate schools, medical schools, or allied health professional programs. While many students may not consider the detailed content of our course again, all are likely to read and interpret primary scientific literature and deliver formal presentations given their intended career paths. To emphasize the importance of the process of formal scientific presentation delivery, at least 50% of journal club grades were awarded based on explicit presentation process criteria on the Journal Club Project part 1 and 2 grading rubrics (Table 1, Supporting Files S3, S5). In addition, students received detailed feedback from both the instructor and their peers in the form of SII reports ([40] and Table 3 for examples) and were provided an opportunity to incorporate this feedback in an end-of-semester presentation to improve their work. Finally, many students are likely to participate in future journal clubs, as journal clubs are widely used in the training and continuing education of clinical practitioners, researchers, and educators (1622). Thus, the Journal Club Project provides a highly structured means of engaging in a format students will likely revisit in the future. Students indicated in an end-of-semester survey they gained helpful skills for working with the primary scientific literature. For instance, many students wrote similar comments to the following:

I personally think this course was one of the challenging but the most rewarding course that I have taken during my academic journey at Emory. Through this course, I have really pushed myself in gradually learning and picking up skills in understanding primary literatures. While I had decent amount of exposure in doing in-person lab techniques, I barely had any experience in actually reading papers. Through this course, I really learned to read primary literatures and feel confident that I will be able to apply the skills/knowledge from reading all the papers from this course when writing my own paper for my research lab.

Given the positive feedback from and high quality of work produced by my students, I will use the Journal Club Project in future offerings of my developmental neurobiology course.

Supporting Materials

  • S1. Journal Club – Course Survey for Group Formation

  • S2. Journal Club – Part 1 Instructions

  • S3. Journal Club – Part 1 Rubric

  • S4. Journal Club – Part 2 Instructions

  • S5. Journal Club – Part 2 Rubric

Acknowledgments

PWC thanks all his students who participated in the Journal Club Project and Oluwadamisi “Damisi” Akinpelu and Lauren Grychowski for their willingness to share their excellent work for this paper. PWC would also like to thank the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society (HAPS) for supporting this work with a 2024 HAPS Conference Award.

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Authors

Author(s): Patrick W. Cafferty†*

Emory University

About the Authors

*Correspondence to: Emory University, Department of Biology, O. Wayne Rollins Research Center, 1510 Clifton Road NE, Atlanta, GA 30322, pcaffer@emory.edu

Competing Interests

The author has no financial, personal, or professional conflict of interest related to this work.

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Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID): https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5563-1158

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