Biology textbooks skewed in their favor.

• Position: Pre-Med Students - Brief article

College biology textbooks cater to the needs of pre-med majors and not those of the majority of students who take introductory science classes, reveals a study published in the journal CBE-Life Sciences Education. A text analysis of commonly used biology textbooks found that all of them closely follow the curriculum suggested for pre-med students by the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT).

That means the texts put a heavy emphasis on molecular and cellular biology, while giving less attention to the big issues that have more relevance to students who do not plan on being medical doctors, asserts biologist Steven Rissing, author of the study, who says his concern is for what he calls "general education" students--those who may take an introductory biology class to fulfill a science requirement for graduation, but have no intention of becoming a doctor or majoring in biology.

Rissing found that the sequence of topics in the texts closely followed the Association of American...