Strategies for building criticism skills in undergraduate biochemists

This paper describes an easy method for empowering biochemistry students to think critically about research data. The technique encourages students to formulate their own opinions by removing the usually dominant ‘expert’ commentary. The exercise can be done individually or in very large groups, requires no specialist materials and confirmation that articulation and criticism skills have been learnt can be assessed under standard examination conditions. The skills learnt are not discipline specific and, as well as learning how best to read research papers, students also learn something about the research process.