GEOSCIENCE SUCCESS LESSONS: INTERVENTION FOR INTRODUCTORY GEOSCIENCE STUDENTS TO DEVELOP THEIR GEOSCIENCE INTEREST

Geoscience interest does not always spontaneously occur in students. Increasing geoscience interest for introductory geoscience students can not only increase their level of interest in geoscience, but also increase their learning, motivation, engagement, success in class, and odds of continuing in the geoscience discipline. An instructional intervention to promote student geoscience interest in introductory geology labs was used to better understand how instructors can foster geoscience interest. A mixed methods study examined how student interest changed from a pre-survey, an interest intervention, and a post-survey. The interest intervention, one of six affective domain interventions developed as part of a larger study, contained (a) an online, self-paced learning task with strategies to increase one’s interest followed by a low-stakes assessment, and (b) a personalized application activity to directly apply knowledge regarding the interest intervention to students’ introductory geology class. The online task included contextualized learning stories--vignettes of students with either low or high interest--and actionable strategies for increasing interest. The personalized application activity asked students to identify geoscience interest and ways to increase it. Though quantitative data analysis did not show a significant change in geoscience interest from pre- to post-survey, the interest interventions were ranked as one of the most helpful affective interventions by the students even among students who also received a math skill intervention. Students were also able to identify topics of interest (i.e. natural disasters) and connect them to their lives (i.e. future career plans). These findings suggest that including this interest intervention may help students identify and connect with geoscience topics and thus increase the recruitment and retention of students in the geosciences.