HOW GEOMORPHOLOGY STUDENTS TEST HYPOTHESES IN THE FIELD AFTER COMPLETING A WEB-BASED SIMULATED FIELD DATA COLLECTION SCENARIO: A CASE STUDY

Geoscience students need to gain skills in scientific practices such as asking research questions and testing hypothesis. Often students are introduced to these concepts as part of “the scientific method” but students rarely have the opportunity to develop these skills until they engage in authentic research.

This case study documents how students enrolled in a geomorphology class gain experience with asking questions and testing hypotheses as they engage with a web-based simulated field data collection scenario and conduct field-based research. In the simulated field scenario, users guide legged robots through sand dunes in White Sands National Park to test hypotheses about dune formation. Students in the geomorphology course completed the simulated scenario as a guided in-class activity, then traveled to White Sands to conduct field research in conjunction with the NASA-funded LASSIE (Legged Autonomous Surface Science in Analogue Environments) research team. Our case study documents how students engaged with the simulated scenario, and how it related to their scientific process skills - specifically, asking questions and testing hypotheses - in the field setting.

Fourteen students from a research-intensive, private university in the eastern United Sates participated in the study. Data included a pre- and post-simulation survey that measured students’ comfort level with asking questions and working in a field setting, text responses and click patterns from the simulation, copies of student final research papers, and observations and brief recorded interviews with students in the field. Ongoing data analysis includes aggregating survey data and developing an emergent coding scheme for analysis of the qualitative data. Preliminary results suggest that students struggled to articulate research questions in the field but were able to do so for their final papers. Additionally, many students did not have specific methods for testing hypotheses and defaulted to what more experienced research mentors suggested. Students connected the training simulation to potential research topics (e.g., moisture content), but not to the practices of asking questions and testing hypotheses.