skip to main content


Title: Evaluating STEM-Based Sustainability Understanding: A Cognitive Mapping Approach
Management education holds promise for addressing deficiencies in interuniversity science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), as well as sustainability curricula. Accordingly, we designed, developed, implemented, and longitudinally evaluated interdisciplinary STEM-based curricula in the United States. Students in five sections of business management courses and two sections of STEM courses received a STEM-based sustainability intervention (i.e., an interdisciplinary STEM and sustainability module). To assess student outcomes following the intervention and examine the feasibility of cognitive mapping as a student learning assessment tool, we implemented a pre- and post-course modified cognitive mapping assessment in treatment and comparison courses. To interpret the results, we ran descriptives, correlations, paired sample t tests, and principal component analysis. The t tests suggest that when all coding categories are considered, those participating in curricular interventions listed significantly more sustainability terms. The principal component analysis results demonstrate that treatment courses improved variability explained by 7.23% between pre- and post-tests but declined by 8.22% for comparison courses. Overall, linkages became stronger between parent code categories for treatment courses and weaker for comparison courses. These findings add to existing research related to cognitive mapping and demonstrate the ability of the method to capture changes in student outcomes after exposure to STEM-based sustainability curriculum.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1951290
NSF-PAR ID:
10287776
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Sustainability
Volume:
13
Issue:
14
ISSN:
2071-1050
Page Range / eLocation ID:
8074
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. To address deficiencies in STEM and sustainability in business management and intra-university curricula, we developed and implemented an interdisciplinary STEM-based sustainability curriculum at a university in the Western United States. Six classes participated in curricular efforts including in-person and online sections of a business management course, in-person and online sections of a general elective STEM course, and a matched control course for each ( n = 214). We systematically designed, developed, and implemented curricular interventions—multi-week STEM-based business sustainability modules—using the case teaching method. A comprehensive evaluation with pre- and post-tests was conducted to assess student sustainability cognition and affect. Significant results emerged for sustainability cognition including the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainability. Counterintuitively, student sustainability affect did not improve. However, sustainability cognition and affect were significantly correlated on the post-test for treatment students, an indication that cognitive and affective changes share the same directionality. Discussion, implications, limitations, and future research directions are provided.

     
    more » « less
  2. null (Ed.)
    The promotion of global sustainability within environmental science courses requires a paradigm switch from knowledge-based teaching to teaching that stimulates higher-order cognitive skills. Non-major undergraduate science courses, such as environmental science, promote critical thinking in students in order to improve the uptake of scientific information and develop the rational decision making used to make more informed decisions. Science, engineering, technology and mathematics (STEM) courses rely extensively on visuals in lectures, readings and homework to improve knowledge. However, undergraduate students do not automatically acquire visual literacy and a lack of intervention from instructors could be limiting academic success. In this study, a visual literacy intervention was developed and tested in the face-to-face (FTF) and online sections of an undergraduate non-major Introduction to Environmental Science course. The intervention was designed to test and improve visual literacy at three levels: (1) elementary—identifying values; (2) intermediate—identifying trends; and (3) advanced—using the data to make projections or conclusions. Students demonstrated a significant difference in their ability to answer elementary and advanced visual literacy questions in both course sections in the pre-test and post-test. Students in the face-to-face course had significantly higher exam scores and higher median assessment scores compared to sections without a visual literacy intervention. The online section did not show significant improvements in visual literacy or academic success due to a lack of reinforcement of visual literacy following the initial intervention. The visual literacy intervention shows promising results in improving student academic success and should be considered for implementation in other general education STEM courses. 
    more » « less
  3. This paper describes the implementation of innovative 3D-printed laboratory equipment linked to inquiry-based learning activities designed to improve learning, increase engineering identity and motivation, and foster a growth mindset in students taking undergraduate level mechanical vibrations courses, control theory courses, and associated laboratories. These innovative designs create new opportunities for hands-on learning, are low-cost, portable, and can be adapted for use in multiple science and engineering disciplines. The learning activities are based on the POGIL model, which has been used across a variety of disciplines including engineering. We describe the features of three separate devices (spring-connected sliding carts, compliant parallel arms with fixed-free ends and a slider mass, and a pendulum with variable tip load) implemented using a quasi-experimental approach with 510 duplicated students across three semesters during the COVID-19 pandemic in multiple lecture courses and laboratory sections. We also present an assessment of impact based on descriptive statistical analyses of survey data for student-reported learning gains and pre-post paired comparison tests on validated instruments measuring perceptions of engineering identity, engineering motivation, and growth mindset. Further, we conducted a student focus group and include salient instructor observations. Results show most students participating in the learning activities using these devices report that it supported their learning “a lot” or “a great deal.” In addition, on six of seven surveyed learning outcomes, most students reported feeling confident enough to complete them on their own or even teach them to someone else. Our data did not show a measurable impact on engineering identity, engineering motivation, or growth mindset, though it does suggest further investigation is merited.

     
    more » « less
  4. Davida Smyth (Ed.)

    The gut microbiome and its physiological impacts on human and animal health is an area of research emphasis. Microbes themselves are invisible and may therefore be abstract and challenging to understand. It is therefore important to infuse this topic into undergraduate curricula, including Anatomy and Physiology courses, ideally through an active learning approach. To accomplish this, we developed a novel tactile teaching tool with guided-inquiry (TTT-GI) activity where students explored how the gut microbiome ferments carbohydrates to produce short chain fatty acids (SCFAs). This activity was implemented in two sections of a large-enrollment Human Anatomy and Physiology course at a research intensive (R1) university in the Spring of 2022 that was taught using a hyflex format. Students who attended class in person used commonly available building toys to assemble representative carbohydrates of varying structural complexity, whereas students who attended class virtually made these carbohydrate structures using a digital learning tool. Students then predicted how microbes within the gut would ferment different carbohydrates into SCFAs, as well as the physiological implications of the SCFAs. We assessed this activity to address three research questions, with 182 students comprising our sample. First, we evaluated if the activity learning objectives were achieved through implementation of a pre-and post-assessment schema. Our results revealed that all three learning objectives of this activity were attained. Next, we evaluated if the format in which this TTT-GI activity was implemented impacted student learning. While we found minimal and nonsignificant differences in student learning between those who attended in-person and those who attended remotely, we did find significant differences between the two course sections, which differed in length and spacing of the activity. Finally, we evaluated if this TTT-GI approach was impactful for diverse students. We observed modest and nonsignificant positive learning gains for some populations of students traditionally underrepresented in STEM (first-generation students and students with one or more disabilities). That said, we found that the greatest learning gains associated with this TTT-GI activity were observed in students who had taken previous upper-level biology coursework.

     
    more » « less
  5. Concept maps have emerged as a valid and reliable method for assessing deep conceptual understanding in engineering education within disciplines as well as interdisciplinary knowledge integration across disciplines. Most work on concept maps, however, focuses on undergraduates. In this paper, we use concept maps to examine changes in graduate students’ conceptual understanding and knowledge integration resulting from an interdisciplinary graduate program. Our study context is pair of foundational, team-taught courses in an interdisciplinary Disaster Resilience and Risk Management (DRRM) graduate program. The courses include a 3-hour research course and a 1-hour seminar that aim to build student understanding within and across Urban Affairs and Planning, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Geosciences, and Business Information Technology. The courses introduce core principles of DRRM and relevant research methods in these disciplines, and drive students to understand the intersections of these disciplines in the context of planning for and responding to natural and human-made disasters. To understand graduate student growth from disciplinary-based to interdisciplinary scholars, we pose the research questions: 1) In what ways do graduate students’ understandings of DRRM change as a result of their introduction to an interdisciplinary graduate research program? and 2) To what extent and in what ways do concept maps serve as a tool to capture interdisciplinary learning in this context? Data includes pre/post concept maps centered on disaster resilience and risk management, a one-page explanation of the post-concept map, and ethnographic field notes gathered from class and faculty meetings. Pre-concept maps were collected on the first day of class; post-concept maps will be collected as part of the final course assignment. We assess the students’ concept maps for depth of conceptual understanding within disciplines and interdisciplinary competency across disciplines, using the field notes to provide explanatory context. The results presented in this paper support the inclusion of an explanation component to concept maps, and also suggest that concept maps alone may not be the best measure of student understanding of concepts within and across disciplines in this specific context. If similar programs wish to use concept maps as an assessment method, we suggest the inclusion of an explanation component and suggest providing explicit instructions that specify the intended audience. We also suggest using a holistic scoring method, as it is more likely to capture nuances in the concept maps than traditional scoring methods, which focus solely on counting factors like hierarchies and number of cross-links. 
    more » « less