CHARACTERIZATION OF GEOLOGIC TASKS AND TASK DURATION IN THE FIELD THROUGH ANALYSIS OF CONTENT AND FREQUENCY IN STUDENT FIELD EXAMINATION NOTES

In geologic fieldwork, practitioners’ field notes contain observations, geologic models and other reflections. These notes provide valuable insight into not only their understanding of the geology, but also common practices of geologists and their workflow during a field project. This study continues our group’s effort to understand advanced undergraduates’ geologic problem solving, and find independent indicators of performance that can be used for formative assessment and ultimately improve field teaching. We analyzed 24 sets of students’ notes taken during 3 different field exams conducted throughout a summer field course. Qualitative analysis revealed that there are 14 different note taking stop types or “species”. These are distinguished by their content (notes about lithology, structure, or both) and the composition (data collection, hypothesis generation, or both). In addition we collected GPS data from these students while they took these notes allowing us to connect the duration of a stop to the types of notes produced during that stop. Note taking species occurred in various frequencies with the most common type being those that focused on lithologic, or lithologic & structural data collection. Stops that produced geologic models, specifically structural models, were much less frequent. The more frequent data collection stops are very short in length (typically 1-4 minutes), while the more complex stops tend to be longer in duration as the note taking gets more complex. Poor performing students have a high proportion of stops where they only collect lithologic data or where they don’t generate any hypotheses. In contrast, successful students have more structural data and hypothesis generation in their notes. From this analysis we conclude that too much effort spent on stops with only basic data collection leaves less time for the cognitive effort required for model development, eventually leading to poor exam performance. Specifically, a higher frequency of lithologic data stops and lack of structural data leads to the development of incomplete geologic models or lack of comprehensive models altogether. Field instructors often educate their students on good note taking practices and critique the content of their students’ field notebooks, and these findings can inform the content of that critique.