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Student understanding of climate change is an active and growing area of research, but little research has documented undergraduate students’ knowledge about the biotic impacts of climate change. Here, we address this literature gap by presenting the Inventory of Biotic Climate Literacy (IBCL), a concept inventory developed to assess undergraduate biology student knowledge of how climate change impacts living things. We developed the IBCL through literature review, student and expert interviews, student field tests, and expert review. We implemented two large nationwide field tests and conducted multiple psychometric analyses on these datasets. These analyses resulted in a final tool of 30 items measuring 16 constructs related to the biotic impacts of climate change. We discovered that the final IBCL does not represent a single, simple construct but rather the complicated and interactive concepts that comprise this topic. We suggest that sum scores are still a valuable measure, as certain groups (upperclassmen and politically liberal individuals) scored significantly higher. We also found value in analyzing individual student performance on the IBCL by developing student profiles. The IBCL represents an important tool in assessing student understanding of the complex and growing problem of climate change and its impact on the living world.
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. Expert and novice conceptions of the biotic impacts of climate change
Research Problem: Climate change is one of the most important environmental, social, and economic issues of our time. The documented impacts of climate change are extensive. Climate change education can help students link this global issue to students’ everyday lives, foster a climate-literate public, and serve as motivation for action. Yet prior to instructional interventions, the first step in promoting conceptual change is to describe expert and novice conceptions or mental models of the topic (Treagust and Duit 2009). Published studies about students’ climate change knowledge primarily stem from the earth and atmospheric sciences, and focus on students’ knowledge of the mechanisms causing global warming and of the abiotic systems important to climate change. Limited research has documented undergraduate students’ knowledge about the biotic impacts of climate change. Our goal was to describe student/novice and instructor/expert conceptual knowledge of the biotic impacts of climate change. Research Design: We conducted interviews with 30 undergraduates and 10 instructors who are students or teaching in Introductory Biology or Ecology classes. Our semi-structured interview protocol probed participants’ conceptions of the mechanisms, outcomes and levels of impact that climate change has on the biological world. Participants were taken from varying institutions across the US (Baccalaureate, Master’s, and Doctoral). Analyses: Following transcription of all interviews, we used thematic coding analysis to describe novice and expert conceptions of the biotic impacts to climate change. We also compared across interview populations to describe how novice and expert conceptions compare. Contribution: Our findings contribute understanding of biology student and expert knowledge of the biotic impacts of climate change and contribute more broadly to the field of climate science where research on understanding of the biotic impacts of climate change is minimal. Our work will represent a novel perspective because most climate education research at the university-level has focused on earth and atmospheric science students. Further, this work is the first step in a larger project that aims to develop valid and reliable concept inventory related to biotic impacts of climate change – an instrument sorely needed to properly address improvements to climate change education.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1836522
- PAR ID:
- 10113196
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Researchers Conference
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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