NEW METHODS FOR ASSESSING INTRODUCTORY EARTH SCIENCE COURSES TO DETERMINE EFFECTIVENESS FOR NON-SCIENCE MAJORS

Introductory Earth science courses are undergoing pedagogical changes in universities across the country and are focusing more than ever on the non-science majors. Increasing enrollment of non-science majors in these introductory Earth science courses demands a new look at what is being taught and how the content can be objectively chosen. Assessing the content and effectiveness of these courses requires a quantitative investigation of introductory Earth science topics and their relevance to current issues and concerns.

In order for universities to produce scientifically literate and informed citizens, a genuine effort must be made to examine the general attitudes and conceptions of the largest population in these introductory Earth science courses: non-science majors. We have examined students’ conception of the nature of science and attitudes towards science and learning science using a Likert-scale assessment instrument in the Fall 2002 Geology 100 class at Iowa State University (Libarkin, Jour. Geosc. Ed., 49, 435-442, 2001). A pre-test (on the first day of class) and post-test (at the end of the semester) were administered to see if the students attitudes changed during the semester as compared to a control group comprised of geoscience majors and professors. The results of the attitude survey have been analyzed in terms of student demographics and socioeconomic variables (e.g. year in school, gender, ZIP).

The relevance of introductory Earth science course content and current real-world issues to student attitudes is a crucial factor when considering changes in course curricula and pedagogy. We have used the computer based national news search-engine Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe (http://www.lexisnexis.org/) to select earth science terms over the last 12 months, five and ten years regionally and nationally. This database of term occurrence will be used to examine how earth sciences have shifted focus in the news through the last 10 years and compared with textbook indices and online syllabi from randomly selected introductory earth science courses. These data constitute the quantitative foundation for this study and are being used to evaluate the relevance of introductory earth science course content.