Michaelis–Menten Graphs, Lineweaver–Burk Plots, and Reaction Schemes: Investigating Introductory Biochemistry Students’ Conceptions of Representations in Enzyme Kinetics

• Published in: Journal of chemical education Vol. 96; no. 9; pp. 1833 - 1845
• Main Authors: Rodriguez, Jon-Marc G, Hux, Nicholas P, Philips, Sven J, Towns, Marcy H
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Easton American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc 10.09.2019; Division of Chemical Education, Inc; American Chemical Society
• Subjects: Biochemistry; Chemical Education Research; College Science; College students; Enzymes; Graphs; Introductory Courses; Kinetics; Learning; Organic chemistry; Reaction kinetics; Representations; Science Instruction; Student Attitudes; Students; Teaching methods; Undergraduate Students; Interdisciplinary/Multidisciplinary; Enzymes; Upper-Division Undergraduate; Biochemistry; Kinetics; Chemical Education Research
• ISSN: 0021-9584; 1938-1328
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.9b00396

This work seeks to add to the growing body of chemistry education research that emphasizes the teaching and learning of advanced topics, focusing on students’ understanding of enzyme kinetics. The data corpus relevant to this study involved 14 second-year undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory biochemistry course taught in a chemistry department. During semistructured interviews, the students were prompted to discuss a typical enzyme kinetics reaction scheme (i.e., E + S ⇌ ES → E + P) and describe two enzyme kinetics graphs. The findings indicated that students had productive understanding regarding the meanings of the kinetic parameters (K m and V max) and the utility of Lineweaver–Burk plots; however, students needed more support in drawing connections between a conceptual understanding and the representations commonly used to model enzyme kinetics.