Kathy Gallucci, assistant professor of biology, recently published “Prayer Study: Science or Not?” which has been included in the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science’s collection. Gallucci is a graduate of the center’s June 2002 Case Studies in Science workshop.
To read the article and its accompanying teaching notes, click here.
In this case, students read a news article about the results of a study of the effects of intercessory prayer on cardiac patients published in the fall of 1999 in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The case was developed to teach non-science majors in an introductory biology course about the scientific method. After reading the case and discussing the questions in small groups, students are asked to evaluate the study for
its scientific validity and defend their reasoning.