"WHAT ON EARTH ARE THEY THINKING?" RESEARCH ON ALTERNATE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS IN THE GEOSCIENCES

Science education at all levels is undergoing a major reform. Research on learning in physics, in particular, has led to major changes in the way introductory physics is taught. The new curricula in physics have been built on the voluminous literature on misconceptions in physics. The coming revolution in earth and space science education will need to be informed by research on learning in the geosciences. However, the research base on teaching and learning in the geosciences is much weaker than that for the other science disciplines. Curriculum reform in the geosciences, especially at the undergraduate level, has tended to be based on anecdotal evidence, rather than solid research on student learning. This situation is changing, however, as geoscientists are embarking on research projects geared toward finding out how students learn in the geosciences. We do know that undergraduate science education has not generally done a good job in overcoming common “misconceptions” or “alternate frameworks”. Without a research base to inform educators as to what misconceptions or alternate frameworks exist among geoscience students, they cannot easily assess how well their programs address their ultimate curricular goals.

This research study addresses directly the question of alternate conceptual frameworks (misconceptions) in the geosciences. Several geoscience researchers (for example, Kusnick, Riggs, Finley) have begun collecting evidence of these misconceptions. In this study, evidence of geoscience misconceptions reported by these researchers in the literature, exploratory student interviews, and structured cognitive labs are used to explore students’ patterns of thinking in geoscience. Once these patterns have been exposed, a written instrument will be developed and administered to a larger population in order determine how widespread these frameworks are. The written instrument will be developed into a core component of an assessment of common beliefs about the solid earth systems. The ultimate outcome of this line of research will be the development of an instrument that assesses conceptual understanding of the earth system.