“It's An Experience You Will Never Forget”: Qualifying the Link Between Fieldwork and the Affective Domain

There is growing evidence that fieldwork can have a considerable influence on student learning through its impact on the affective domain. Boyle et al. (2007) use pre and post-fieldwork surveys to evaluate changes in students' affective responses to residential fieldwork, and conclude from their findings that ‘fieldwork is good'. We applied a similar survey to 62 geology students undertaking a mapping fieldcourse in eastern Spain, and on the basis of the quantitative findings (e.g. from Likert-scale questions) established that, in general, affective responses did improve as a result of the fieldwork.

Whilst providing us with a quantifiable measure of changes in the students' attitudes and feelings, however, the survey data tell us little or nothing about the experiences that have resulted in these changes, or of the factors likely to have influenced them. In order to gain a deeper insight into the students' affective responses we supplemented the quantitative data with qualitative data from in-situ and group interviews, open (free-text) survey questions, and direct observation of fieldwork activities. This provided a richness of information that would not be achieved from quantitative data alone, and thus enabled us to achieve a greater understanding of the students' experiences of this residential fieldcourse. It also enabled the social and cultural aspects of the fieldcourse to ‘emerge' as factors which significantly influenced the students' affective responses. Our findings support the conclusion of Boyle et al. (2007) that ‘fieldwork is good', and demonstrate the value of combining qualitative and quantitative data to enhance our understanding of learning in a field environment.