A NEW TOOL FOR INVESTIGATING UNDERGRADUATE ATTITUDES ABOUT EARTH SCIENCE

One goal of earth science education is for students to develop more expert-like attitudes and approaches to the discipline. For this reason the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of British Columbia (UBC) developed the Student Attitudes about Earth Sciences Survey (SAESS). Students respond on a Likert-scale to 35 statements such as: “Things I see around me in nature often lead me to think about how the Earth works.” Using matched responses from the start and end of a term we can assess changes in attitude associated with courses. Over 6000 students at 3 institutions have participated in SAESS over the past 2 years.

Both averaged and individual results can be useful for understanding student attitudes and how they change. On average, students taking Earth and Ocean Science courses at UBC do not become more expert-like over the course of a term, though they do report that their interest level increases. In contrast, geology students at a community college show statistically significant positive attitudinal gains. On an individual statement, students in lower-level service courses at UBC report increased confidence in their understanding of geologic time, while those in upper-level majors courses report decreased confidence. Additionally, at the end of term, 25% of students think that learning Earth and Ocean Science is about memorization, which is 5% more than at the beginning of term.

So far, we have found the SAESS to be an effective tool to help measure shifts in student attitudes. The results are providing instructors with valuable information that will guide pedagogical changes in their classes. SAESS will then be used to track how course optimization affects student attitudes.