USING THE GEOSCIENCE CONCEPT INVENTORY (GCI) TO ASSESS THE EFFECTIVENESS OF AN ONLINE BLENDED INTRODUCTORY GEOLOGY CLASS AT SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY

An online blended geology course was developed and offered at SDSU for the first time during the 05/06 academic year. The constraints in its development were (1) flexibility in fitting a student's schedule, (2) flexibility for a student to select a preferred method of learning, and (3) clear and concise goals. To meet these constraints students are provided an online textbook written by the first author with many interactive illustrations, an online syllabus containing specific learning outcomes goals, a set of practice exams (study guides), and video lectures (screencasts) covering material in each of the 13 chapters covered during the semester. In addition, students are allowed to attend the first author's lectures that are given to a standard weekly based introductory geology class that covers the same material. From a CD of the online textbook students can print out each chapter along with colored illustrations. In order to maintain academic standards all exams take place at SDSU on Saturday morning, and follow standard class room exam format. During Fall 07 students enrolled in the course were given the GCI developed by J.C. Labarkin and colleagues. The GCI is a multiple-choice assessment instrument developed specifically for use in entry-level Earth Science courses. It has gone through rigorous reliability and validation studies. The GCI was given during the first and last week of the Fall 07 course. Demographic data indicate that about 5% of the students enrolled in the class were science majors while the largest groups were represented by business (34%) and professional studies (21%) majors. The majority (78%) of students were freshmen and sophomores. The Rasch Model Score for the pre-course GCI (n = 66) was 39 ± 15 (1 σ) and for the post-course GCI (n = 117) was 52 ± 13. This result represents a gain of 13%, a value that is significantly higher than the national average of a 4% gain in the post-course Rasch Model Score. These results are broadly similar to those obtained from the Summer 07 online course which had a significantly smaller enrollment (pre: n = 28; post n = 24), and consisted mostly of juniors and seniors (69%). We interpret these data within the context described above to indicate that online learning can be an effective means for developing knowledge of key concepts about planet Earth in learners in non-science fields.