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Reading primary literature by students is both a valuable skill that promotes critical thinking and a pedagogical tool that reinforces and enhances core concepts. These functions are particularly critical in Microbiology education given the growing prevalence of misinformation. Barriers such as lack of resources and student engagement prevent effective implementation of primary literature teaching. Here we investigated the effectiveness of a tool –annotations of microbiology podcasts-, used in two distinct modes, in increasing student motivation for primary literature reading, and in providing faculty support and confidence in using primary literature. We developed an internship based on reading primary literature and annotating episodes of “This Week in Microbiology” where student-faculty teams collaborated to align podcast episodes to ASM curricular guidelines and design short figure-reading exercises. Thirty-five faculty and 330 students from 34 institutions participated and generated annotations that are published in an Open Educational Resource. Students’ motivation and interest in primary literature were measured with pre- and post- Motivation in Reading and CLAS-BIO surveys. Motivation in Reading increased statistically, whereas CLAS-BIO did not change likely due to scores being already high at the time of pre-test. Eighty-five percent of faculty respondents felt more confident when writing learning outcomes, and 90% believed the internship had provided valuable professional skills. These annotated podcasts were deployed in a traditional General Microbiology course. Student gains were measured using pre- and post- TOSLS and MCI surveys. Although the MCI scores increased, we cannot assign this change solely to the primary literature activities. TOSLS scores did not significantly change. In sum, we present here an activity that is highly effective at motivating students to read primary literature when presented as an internship where students annotate episodes, but we were unable to measure specific gains for students using the annotations in the classroom.
