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
- NSF-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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Abstract Climate change is a critical environmental issue and is a recommended core concept in the Ecological Society of America’s 4‐Dimensional Ecology Education framework. Limited work describes K‐12 students’ conceptions of the biotic impacts of climate change, yet research is lacking to explore undergraduate students’ conceptions on this topic. Our goal was to describe undergraduate student conceptions of the biotic outcomes of climate change, and characterize how these student conceptions of animal responses to climate change align with accepted scientific ideas. We used an interpretive qualitative research design and interviewed 13 undergraduate students who were enrolled in either an introductory biology or general ecology course. Through two independent codings of the same dataset, we separately addressed each of our research goals. Prior to this study, we identified three general biotic outcomes from climate change, which were confirmed by outside experts: changes to an animal’s Growth and Survival, their Reproduction, or their Distribution. Our student interviewees as a whole mentioned all three of these outcomes, and most individuals mentioned all three in their responses. Additionally, we found that most student ideas were aligned with Scientific conceptions, while a third of student ideas contained some scientific conceptions but were incomplete. Only a small percent of conceptions voiced in our sample were identified as alternative conceptions that did not align with accepted scientific ideas. These findings are important for educators who teach climate change, as they suggest that undergraduate students come to our classes with productive resources; however, our findings also identify concepts where students may struggle or enter classrooms with a more incomplete understanding.
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null (Ed.)This NSF EAGER research paper investigates how undergraduate STEM and engineering students’ learning trajectories evolve over time, from 1st to senior year, along a novice to expert spectrum. We borrow the idea of “learning trajectories” from mathematics education that can paint the evolution of students’ knowledge and skills over time over a set of learning experiences. Curricula for undergraduate engineering programs can reflect an intended pathway of knowledge construction within a discipline. We intend our study of individual students within undergraduate STEM and engineering programs can highlight how this may happen in situ and how it may be similar or might differ from a given, prescribed programs of study among disciplines. We use a theoretical framework based in adaptive expertise and design thinking adaptive expertise to develop a design learning continuum further. Envisioned routes through disciplinary undergraduate curricula and student conceptions of their design process are explored through qualitative, semi-structured interviews with undergraduate 1st year and senior year students across STEM, engineering and non-STEM field such as computer science, mechanical engineering, general engineering, mathematics, science, English, and art. We also conduct similar interviews with faculty in these fields who are responsible and knowledgeable for undergraduate programs about their perceived benefits for the structure of their program’s curriculum. Additional information is collected from noticing the organizational and pedagogical structures of the relative undergraduate curriculum. Initial findings/outcomes suggest that traditions to knowledge construction both differ across disciplinary approaches and have similarities across non-obvious disciplinary relationships. Faculty have a firm understanding of how one class chains from one to another; students have less of a field of view for how mindful chunks of knowledge combine together.more » « less
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null (Ed.)As our nation’s need for engineering professionals grows, a sharp rise in P-12 engineering education programs and related research has taken place (Brophy, Klein, Portsmore, & Rogers, 2008; Purzer, Strobel, & Cardella, 2014). The associated research has focused primarily on students’ perceptions and motivations, teachers’ beliefs and knowledge, and curricula and program success. The existing research has expanded our understanding of new K-12 engineering curriculum development and teacher professional development efforts, but empirical data remain scarce on how racial and ethnic diversity of student population influences teaching methods, course content, and overall teachers’ experiences. In particular, Hynes et al. (2017) note in their systematic review of P-12 research that little attention has been paid to teachers’ experiences with respect to racially and ethnically diverse engineering classrooms. The growing attention and resources being committed to diversity and inclusion issues (Lichtenstein, Chen, Smith, & Maldonado, 2014; McKenna, Dalal, Anderson, & Ta, 2018; NRC, 2009) underscore the importance of understanding teachers’ experiences with complementary research-based recommendations for how to implement engineering curricula in racially diverse schools to engage all students. Our work examines the experiences of three high school teachers as they teach an introductory engineering course in geographically and distinctly different racially diverse schools across the nation. The study is situated in the context of a new high school level engineering education initiative called Engineering for Us All (E4USA). The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded initiative was launched in 2018 as a partnership among five universities across the nation to ‘demystify’ engineering for high school students and teachers. The program aims to create an all-inclusive high school level engineering course(s), a professional development platform, and a learning community to support student pathways to higher education institutions. An introductory engineering course was developed and professional development was provided to nine high school teachers to instruct and assess engineering learning during the first year of the project. This study investigates participating teachers’ implementation of the course in high schools across the nation to understand the extent to which their experiences vary as a function of student demographic (race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status) and resource level of the school itself. Analysis of these experiences was undertaken using a collective case-study approach (Creswell, 2013) involving in-depth analysis of a limited number of cases “to focus on fewer "subjects," but more "variables" within each subject” (Campbell & Ahrens, 1998, p. 541). This study will document distinct experiences of high school teachers as they teach the E4USA curriculum. Participants were purposively sampled for the cases in order to gather an information-rich data set (Creswell, 2013). The study focuses on three of the nine teachers participating in the first cohort to implement the E4USA curriculum. Teachers were purposefully selected because of the demographic makeup of their students. The participating teachers teach in Arizona, Maryland and Tennessee with predominantly Hispanic, African-American, and Caucasian student bodies, respectively. To better understand similarities and differences among teaching experiences of these teachers, a rich data set is collected consisting of: 1) semi-structured interviews with teachers at multiple stages during the academic year, 2) reflective journal entries shared by the teachers, and 3) multiple observations of classrooms. The interview data will be analyzed with an inductive approach outlined by Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña (2014). All teachers’ interview transcripts will be coded together to identify common themes across participants. Participants’ reflections will be analyzed similarly, seeking to characterize their experiences. Observation notes will be used to triangulate the findings. Descriptions for each case will be written emphasizing the aspects that relate to the identified themes. Finally, we will look for commonalities and differences across cases. The results section will describe the cases at the individual participant level followed by a cross-case analysis. This study takes into consideration how high school teachers’ experiences could be an important tool to gain insight into engineering education problems at the P-12 level. Each case will provide insights into how student body diversity impacts teachers’ pedagogy and experiences. The cases illustrate “multiple truths” (Arghode, 2012) with regard to high school level engineering teaching and embody diversity from the perspective of high school teachers. We will highlight themes across cases in the context of frameworks that represent teacher experience conceptualizing race, ethnicity, and diversity of students. We will also present salient features from each case that connect to potential recommendations for advancing P-12 engineering education efforts. These findings will impact how diversity support is practiced at the high school level and will demonstrate specific novel curricular and pedagogical approaches in engineering education to advance P-12 mentoring efforts.more » « less
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Abstract Background An instructor’s conceptions of teaching and learning contribute to the establishment of learning environments that may benefit or hinder student learning. Previous studies have defined the continuum of teaching and learning conceptions, ranging from limited to complete, as well as the instructional practices that they help to inform (instructor-centered to student-centered), and the corresponding learning environments that these conceptions and practices establish, ranging from traditional to student-centered. Using the case of one STEM department at a research-intensive, minority serving institution, we explored faculty’s conceptions of teaching and learning and their resulting instructional practices, as well as uncovered their perspectives on the intradepartmental faculty interactions related to teaching. The study participants were drawn from both teaching-focused (called Professors of Teaching, PoTs) and traditional research (whom we call Research Professors, RPs) tenure-track faculty lines to identify whether differences existed amongst these two populations. We used interviews to explore faculty conceptions and analyzed syllabi to unveil how these conceptions shape instructional environments.
Results Overall, PoTs exhibited complete conceptions of teaching and learning that emphasized student ownership of learning, whereas RPs possessed intermediate conceptions that focused more on transmitting knowledge and helping students prepare for subsequent courses. While both PoTs and RPs self-reported the use of active learning pedagogies, RPs were more likely to also highlight the importance of traditional lecture. The syllabi analysis revealed that PoTs enacted more student-centered practices in their classrooms compared to RPs. PoTs appeared to be more intentionally available to support students outside of class and encouraged student collaboration, while RPs focused more on the timeliness of assessments and enforcing more instructor-centered approaches in their courses. Finally, the data indicated that RPs recognized PoTs as individuals who were influential on their own teaching conceptions and practices.
Conclusions Our findings suggest that departments should consider leveraging instructional experts who also possess a disciplinary background (PoTs) to improve their educational programs, both due to their student-centered impacts on the classroom environment and positive influence on their colleagues (RPs). This work also highlights the need for higher education institutions to offer appropriate professional development resources to enable faculty to reflect on their teaching and learning conceptions, aid in their pedagogical evolution, and guide the implementation of these conceptions into practice.
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