ASSESSING SCIENCE LITERACY GAINS IN A FLIPPED INTRODUCTORY PHYSICAL GEOLOGY COURSE: PRELIMINARY RESULTS

Introductory science courses, such as physical geology, are often filled with non science major students. For these students the goal of the instructor is not just delivering the material about that particular branch of science, but also ensuring that students understand what science is and how it works.

The science literacy concepts inventory (SLCI) is a new assessment to measure 12 concepts for citizen-level science literacy (Nuhfer et al., 2016). This is a valid and reliable assessment tool that uses 25 questions. The SLCI has been used at several institutions and now has a large database of responses from a wide range of individuals from undergraduates to faculty members from science and non-science fields. The SLCI can be used to measure a person’s current science literacy, or used in a pre- and post-test method to examine changes in science literacy over time.

Since fall 2015, one section of introductory physical geology at ISU has been taught in an flipped format using peer instruction pedagogy. The SLCI was used in fall 2017 to measure science literacy learning gains in students enrolled in the class. Students completed the SLCI at the beginning and end of the semester in order to establish how much they had developed their science literacy over the course of the semester. Students received credit for completing both attempts. Of the 116 students who finished the course, 48 completed both attempts.

Preliminary results of the paired data show that by the end of the semester the students who completed the SLCI showed a significant increase in their scores at the 95% confidence level (M=70.75% to M=76.17%). Both male and female students showed significant increase in their scores at the 95% confidence level (Male: M=78.61% to M=83.83%, Female: M=64.52% to M=69.12%). Both science and non science majors also showed significant increase in their scores at the 95% confidence level (Science: M=74.10% to M=81.14%, Non science: M=68.15% to M=72.30%). Further breakdown by ethnicity, school year, number of science courses taken, and first generation student was not possible because of insufficient sample size. Data from more semesters are needed to confirm these encouraging preliminary results.