EVIDENCE FOR DISTINCT TEMPORAL SIGNATURES FOR DIFFERENT HYPOTHESIS GENERATION STYLES IN FIELD GEOLOGY EXAMINATIONS

Recent research in field geology instruction has shed light on the processes used by students to form and develop combined sedimentological and structural hypotheses. Findings indicate that there are eight distinct frameworks for hypothesis generation. Students can achieve success using variants of single or multiple hypotheses approaches, but the latter approaches increase the chances of high performance. These findings are vital to understanding how geologists learn to investigate geologic field problems, but we still seek to further understand how these cognitive processes are physically manifested in student behavior to better provide guidance for field instruction. In this study we expand upon our original qualitative study of problem solving frameworks by analyzing field notes from 26 advanced undergraduate students. In addition, to further investigate the link between navigation behavior and problem solving we have analyzed GPS data from 34 students that was collected in conjunction with the data used to develop the frameworks. We have chosen to focus on the duration and timing of students’ stops during an independent field exam, as the quality and sequence of these stops can be critical to the development and refinement of geologic models. The goal is to elucidate time-on-task and investigation patterns that are indicative of certain problem solving frameworks. Analysis reveals a relation between dwell time ranges and types of tasks such as outcrop-scale data collection, map drawing, or graphical hypothesis testing in field notes. Histograms generated from students’ dwell times show that the data can be grouped into several bins. 45%, of students’ stops were of 1-2 minutes in length. After these short reconnaissance style stops we observe an exponential decline in frequency of stops, indicating longer stops to collect structural data, work on maps, and generate hypothesis are much more infrequent. Students with a higher frequency of 1-2 minute stops or stops over 15 minutes, tended to perform poorly. The distribution of longer stops appears to be correlated with the specific model-building framework used by the students, leading potentially toward a diagnostic teaching tool and adding insight into the detailed nature of geologic tasks in the field.