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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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Conceptions of span in linear algebra: From textbook examples to student responses
Using Balacheff’s (2013) model of conceptions, we inferred potential conceptions in three examples presented in the spanning sets section of an interactive linear algebra textbook. An analysis of student responses to two similar reading questions revealed additional strategies that students used to decide whether a vector was in the spanning set of a given set of vectors. An analysis of the correctness of the application of these strategies provides a more nuanced understanding of student responses that might be more useful for instructors than simply classifying the responses as right or wrong. These findings add to our knowledge of the textbook’s presentation of span and student understanding of span. We discuss implications for research and practice.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1821509
- PAR ID:
- 10547458
- Publisher / Repository:
- Educational Studies in Mathematics
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Educational Studies in Mathematics
- Volume:
- 116
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0013-1954
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 67 to 89
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- span model of conceptions interactive textbooks
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-024-10306-8
