Karen S. McNeal

Inquiry in the Physical Geology Classroom: Supporting Students' Conceptual Model Development

This study characterizes the impact of an inquiry-based learning (IBL) module versus a traditionally structured laboratory exercise. Laboratory sections were randomized into experimental and control groups. The experimental group was taught using IBL pedagogical techniques and included manipulation of large-scale data-sets, use of multiple representations and a physical model and exposure to ill-constrained problems common to the Texas Gulf Coast. The control groups were taught using traditional laboratory activities. The groups were not significantly different prior to exposure. Pre/post-expressed conceptual models and final written reports indicate that the experimental group had greater increases in their conceptual model development of sand-sediment transport.

The Strength of Evidence Pyramid: One Approach for Characterizing the Strength of Evidence of Geoscience Education Research (GER) Community Claims.

ABSTRACT During the past two decades, the Geoscience Education Research (GER) community has been increasingly recognized as an evidence-based research subdiscipline in the geoscience and in the larger discipline-based education research (DBER) field. Most recently, the GER community has begun to address the current state of the field and discuss the best course forward so that it can have the greatest collective impact on advancing teaching and learning in the geosciences. The community has formally recognized that practice should be evidence based and that the strengths and limitations of community-level research claims should be transparent. As such, this commentary article describes a conceptual model—the Strength of Evidence Pyramid—as a pathway to organize the strength of evidence in the GER community of generalizable claims generated by both geo–Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and geo-DBER efforts. Its design is informed by a rubric and the outcomes of a DBER synthesis, as well as by parallels we see in the concept of evidence-based medicine in the health sciences. The proposed GER Strength of Evidence Pyramid uses five levels to categorize GER-community claims: (1) practitioner wisdom/expert opinion; original qualitative and quantitative studies, including (2) case studies and (3) cohort studies; and analyzed published literature in the form of (4) meta-analyses and (5) systematic reviews. The goal of the Pyramid is to assist geoscience-education researchers and geoscience educators to visualize, organize their thinking, and evaluate the quality of the evidence of GER-community claims. The potential applications and limitations of the model for use in the GER community are described.

Transdisciplinary science education research and practice: opportunities for GER in a developing STEM discipline-based education research alliance (DBER-A)

Each science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) discipline has developed a rich, ongoing program of education research and scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Recent interest in con...

Understanding Perceptions of the Geosciences Among Minority and Nonminority Undergraduate Students

ABSTRACT This study augments existing literature in understanding student perceptions about the geosciences; we examined the choice of major and science courses taken by 645 students at a large southeastern research university. Differences were examined between underrepresented minority (URM) and nonminority students. We compared responses regarding not only different sciences but also different subfields of geoscience, and where possible, we compared those subjects with biology. Our results show significant differences in (1) the selection of a college major, (2) the selection of science electives, (3) characteristics of the ideal career, (4) interest and self-efficacy in science and math, and (5) career perceptions of geoscience and other select sciences among URM and nonminority students. We identified three main factors that contributed to student selection of college major, including important influencers, sustained identification with or interest in that major, and descriptors of the major itself. We also found that a students advisor may be one of the greatest factors in which science classes an undergraduate student takes at a university. Finally, our research showed that the geosciences scored lower than other science subjects with respect to student perceptions in its ability to help the environment, help society, help them find a job, and salary. This was true for each of the geoscience fields measured when compared with every other science, technology, engineering, and math fields measured with the exception of physics.

Salt Marsh Sediment Biogeochemical Response to the BP Blowout.

The impact of the blowout on salt marshes was investigated by observing the biogeochemistry in salt marsh sediments along the Gulf Coast. High sulfide levels due to hydrocarbon loading, increased microbial activity, and microbial community shifts can lead to plant browning and mortality. Sediment biogeochemical processes that degrade enriched carbon pools through sulfate reduction are primarily responsible for the biodegradation of spilled hydrocarbons. An assessment of the impact of contamination on salt marshes at Skiff Island, LA, and Cat Island, Marsh Point, and Saltpan Island, MS, was achieved through sediment electrode profiling, microbial community profiling, and quantification of hydrocarbon contamination, which captured the spatial sedimentary biogeochemical response that affects salt marsh productivity. At western locations (Skiff and Cat Islands), total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs) ranged from 2183 to 2996 mg kg, which was more than double the TPH concentration observed at eastern locales. At eastern study locations (e.g., Marsh Point), sedimentary pore-water HS concentrations were higher (maximum value = 231 mg L) and detected further up in the sediment column than at western locales (e.g., Skiff Island). Similarly, anaerobic and aerobic microbial activity, as measured by C substrate utilization profiles and well-color development, was as high or higher at eastern locations as compared with western locations. These results indicate that other factors besides location or degree of contamination, perhaps sedimentary dynamics and physical processes specific to each marsh, should be considered when determining salt marsh response to hydrocarbon contamination.

Sparking Conversations about Graduate Programs in Geoscience Education Research.

ABSTRACT The calls for a college-educated science and technology workforce, as well as a scientifically literate citizenry, have led to a demand for higher education faculty prepared in discipline-based education research (DBER). These faculty members conduct research on teaching and learning in the context of a specific discipline, including the geosciences. Historically, faculty have become active in geoscience education research (GER) after completing a graduate degree in a “traditional” geoscience discipline such as geomorphology, paleontology, or structural geology. Increasing demand for GER faculty has led to the growth of graduate programs specializing in GER. We explore the current state of GER graduate preparation in the United States and the issues moving forward in establishing and advancing GER graduate programs. We hope to spark discussion in the GER community about what GER graduate preparation entails, as programs grow and proliferate, to assist the community in being intentional in the preparation of future professionals. We make key recommendations for the GER community, including: (1) hold community-wide discussions about GER graduate training, (2) investigate methodological training as a shared graduate training experience in GER, (3) embed authentic teaching and research opportunities in graduate programs that mirror a students planned career trajectory and assist them in becoming reflective teachers, (4) encourage GER faculty to continue to inform their colleagues and administrators about GER and what it is (and is not), and (5) look beyond GER to how other DBER fields design and implement graduate programs.

Pupillary response to complex interdependent tasks: A cognitive-load theory perspective

Pupil dilation is known to indicate cognitive load. In this study, we looked at the average pupillary responses of a cohort of 29 undergraduate students during graphical problem solving. Three questions were asked, based on the same graphical input. The questions were interdependent and comprised multiple steps. We propose a novel way of analyzing pupillometry data for such tasks on the basis of eye fixations, a commonly used eyetracking parameter. We found that pupil diameter increased during the solution process. However, pupil diameter did not always reflect the expected cognitive load. This result was studied within a cognitive-load theory model. Higher-performing students showed evidence of germane load and schema creation, indicating use of the interdependent nature of the tasks to inform their problem-solving process. However, lower-performing students did not recognize the interdependent nature of the tasks and solved each problem independently, which was expressed in a markedly different pupillary response pattern. We discuss the import of our findings for instructional design.

Synthesis: Discussion and Implications

Kristen St. John, James Madison University; Kelsey Bitting, Northeastern University; Cinzia Cervato, Iowa State University; Kim A. Kastens, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory; Heather Macdonald, College of William & Mary; John R. McDaris, SERC at Carleton College; Karen S. McNeal, Auburn University; Heather L. Petcovic, Western Michigan University; Eric J. Pyle, James Madison University; Eric M. Riggs, Texas A&M University; Katherine Ryker, University of South Carolina; Steven Semken, Arizona State University-Tempe; Rachel Teasdale, California State University-Chico.

A new, valid measure of climate change understanding: associations with risk perception

The relationship between climate change understanding and other variables, including risk perception, beliefs, and worldviews, is an important consideration as we work to increase public attention to climate change. Despite significant effort to develop rigorous mechanisms for measuring affective variables, measurement of climate change understanding is often relegated to unvalidated questions or question sets. To remedy this situation, we constructed and analyzed a climate change concept inventory using a suite of validity and reliability steps, including Rasch analysis. The resultant 21-item test has a high degree of validity and reliability for measuring understanding about basic climate change processes. Inventory scores along with other variables were included in a model of climate change risk perception, providing both concurrent validity for the test and new insight into the importance of understanding, worldview, and values on risk perception. We find that environmental beliefs and cultural cognition worldview play a larger role in predicting an individual’s risk perception than knowledge. Implications for addressing climate change are considered.

Editorial: Introduction to the Theme: Synthesizing Results and Defining Future Directions of Geoscience Education Research

INTRODUCTION The community of geoscience education researchers (GER) has reached a critical juncture where it is taking inventory in regard to the work that has been accomplished and what questions still need to be answered in GER. Through cross-community participation in a series of recent workshops (St. John et al., 2015, 2016, 2017; Macdonald, 2016), the GER community discussed pathways forward that may have the greatest collective impact on advancing teaching and learning in the field. As a result, this theme issue Synthesizing Geoscience Education Research: Where are we? What is the path forward? was proposed. One of the justifications for the theme issue was the identified need to increase the strength of evidence in the geoscience education research literature. Using the strength of evidence pyramid (Fig. 1; for further explanation, see St. John and McNeal, 2017), we have categorized the past year (Fig. 1) of published articles in the Journal of Geoscience Education (JGE). Using the recent JGE issue as a gauge, it is clear that the geoscience literature has been lacking in regard to systematic review papers as well as meta-analyses. Review papers provide strong evidence for what has been done in the field and what future steps may need to be taken in a particular research area through the identification and articulation of the current state of the collective research in a given topic area. Meta-analyses combine datasets that a series of researchers have published and address higher order questions that require multiple data sources through largescale analyses of the collective datasets. This JGE special issue contributes 11 literature reviews to the community. It also contributes a high number of commentary papers (six) and editorials (two). The community has collectively thought about future research needs and potential areas of growth, and the commentary paper submission category in the JGE allows for authors to discuss a variety of topics that are of interest to the GER community. Both literature reviews and commentary papers are peer reviewed in the JGE. This special issue also contributes a curriculum and instruction (C&I) paper and a research paper. Most of the previous submissions to JGE can be categorized as either case or cohort studies, with a few practitioner knowledge pieces (e.g., commentaries) (Fig. 1). Nearly equal distribution of C&I and research papers are typically published, with C&I manuscripts being slightly greater. This special issue significantly adds manuscripts within the literature review and practitioner knowledge categories of the strength of evidence pyramid. Unfortunately, the GER community is not yet capable of producing robust meta-analyses as there is currently no formal mechanism in place to share datasets. This is, in part, an infrastructure issue as well as an institutional review board (IRB) issue, since all of the data for GER research is protected by IRB human subjects review, and to share the data on a larger scale, researchers need to include such requests in their IRB applications prior to conducting the research. There are strategies to work these issues out, and they are being discussed currently within the GER community. However, to date no mechanisms for sharing datasets have been put in place making it difficult to complete metaanalysis research in GER. Highlighted in this theme issue is a collection of articles focused on GER practice and community development (Kastens and Krumhansl, p. 373; Manduca, p. 416; Shipley et al., p. 354; and St. John and McNeal, p. 363), graduate training (Bitting et al., p. 519; and McNeal and Petcovic, p. 399), access and success in the geosciences (Callahan et al., p. 563; Carabajal et al., p. 531; McDaris and Manduca, p. 407; and Wolfe and Riggs, p. 577), teaching practice (Cheek et al., p. 455; Holder et al., p. 490; Liu et al., p. 435; McConnell et al., p. 604; Ormand et al., p. 426; and Scherer et al., p. 473), and cognition and affect (Jaeger et al., p. 506; Semken et al., p. 542; Shipley and Tikoff, p. 393; and van der Hoeven Kraft, p. 594). We recognize that there are many other areas that could have been written about as important topics for consideration for future directions in GER, and this special issue is not intended to be an exhaustive list of manuscripts or ideas. Rather, it is an attempt to move the community forward adding resources as we continue to collectively consider the path forward. Whether you are long vested in GER or are new to the geoscience education research field, this special issue provides a wealth of information about some of the key research areas in GER, as well as provide the impetus for research you may be interested in pursuing in the future. We summarize each of the articles included in this issue in the sections below.