What Geoscience Experts And Novices Look At, And What They See, When Viewing Data Visualizations

This study examines how geoscience experts and novices make meaning from an iconic type of data visualization: shaded relief images of bathymetry and topography.  Participants examined, described, and interpreted a global image, two high-resolution seafloor images, and 2 high-resolution continental images, while having their gaze direction eye-tracked and their utterances and gestures videoed. In addition, experts were asked about how they would coach an undergraduate intern on how to interpret this data.  Not unexpectedly, all experts were more skillful than any of the novices at describing and explaining what they were seeing.  However, the novices showed a wide range of performance.  Along the continuum from weakest novice to strongest expert, proficiency developed in the following order: making qualitative observations of salient features, making simple interpretations, making quantitative observations.  The eye-tracking analysis examined how the experts and novices invested 20 seconds of unguided exploration, after the image came into view but before the researcher began to ask questions.  On the cartographic elements of the images, experts and novices allocated their exploration time differently:  experts invested proportionately more fixations on the latitude and longitude axes, while students paid more attention to the color bar.  In contrast, within the parts of the image showing the actual geomorphological data, experts and novices on average allocated their attention similarly, attending preferentially to the geologically significant landforms.   Combining their spoken responses with their eye-tracking behavior, we conclude that the experts and novices are looking in the same places but “seeing” different things

HOW DO NOVICE AND EXPERT LEARNERS REPRESENT, UNDERSTAND, AND DISCUSS GEOLOGIC TIME?

This dissertation examined the representations novice and expert learners constructed for the geologic timescale. Learners engaged in a three-part activity. The purpose was to compare novice learners’ representations to those of expert learners. This provided insight into the similarities and differences between their strategies for event ordering, assigning values and scale to the geologic timescale model, as well as their language and practices to complete the model. With a qualitative approach to data analysis informed by an expert-novice theoretical framework grounded in phenomenography, learner responses comprised the data analyzed. These data highlighted learners’ metacognitive thoughts that might not otherwise be shared through lectures or laboratory activities. Learners’ responses were analyzed using a discourse framework that positioned learners as knowers. Novice and expert learners both excelled at ordering and discussing events before the Phanerozoic, but were challenged with events during the Phanerozoic. Novice learners had difficulty assigning values to events and establishing a scale for their models. Expert learners expressed difficulty with determining a scale because of the size of the model, yet eventually used anchor points and unitized the model to establish a scale. Despite challenges constructing their models, novice learners spoke confidently using claims and few hedging phrases indicating their confidence in statements made. Experts used more hedges than novices, however the hedging comments were made about more complex conceptions. Using both phenomenographic and discourse analysis approaches for analysis foregrounded learners’ discussions of how they perceived geologic time and their ways of knowing and doing. This research is intended to enhance the geoscience community’s understanding of the ways novice and expert learners think and discuss conceptions of geologic time, including the events and values of time, and the strategies used to determine accuracy of scale. This knowledge will provide a base from which to support geoscience curriculum development at the university level, specifically to design activities that will not only engage and express learners’ metacognitive scientific practices, but to encourage their construction of scientific identities and membership in the geoscience community

Visualizers, visualizations, and visualizees : differences in meaning-making by scientific experts and novices from global visualizations of ocean data

Data visualizations designed for academic scientists are not immediately meaningful to everyday scientists. Communicating between a specialized, expert audience and a general, novice public is non-trivial; it requires careful translation. However, more widely available visualization technologies and platforms, including new three-dimensional spherical display systems in schools and informal science education institutions, often use the same visualizations that experts use to communicate amongst themselves, resulting in a public which often fails to make significant meaning from the visualizations. This dissertation uses a pragmatic, bricolage framework, incorporating cognitivist, social constructivist, and sociocultural perspectives. I used semi-clinical interviews and eye-tracking to investigate academic scientific experts and novices as they attempted to make meaning from global visualizations of ocean data. Stimuli were fifteen visualizations, three topics with five versions of each visualization with different levels of scaffolding to improve communication: no scaffolding; changes to color scale; addition of geographic labels; revision of title and measurement unit; or all three forms. Laboratory interviews revealed that non-science major novices struggled with decoding almost every part of unscaffolded visualizations, while experts had difficulty only in understanding the time of year and season represented. Novices did not always use supporting elements such as the title and key, could not understand jargon in unscaffolded titles, conflated the meaning of the standard academic science “rainbow” color scale used across multiple topics, and could not always orient themselves geographically to the visualizations centered on the Pacific Ocean basin. However, their understanding improved on the scaffolded visualizations. Interviews in a public interpretive science center revealed further struggles with meaning-making; scores were lower than either laboratory participant group. Eye-tracking confirmed the differences between the participant groups at the level of visual search of visualizations, revealing that novices looked at the map portion of the visualizations less comprehensively than experts in the unscaffolded case. However, novice scan paths on the scaffolded visualizations more closely resembled experts’. Fixation durations started out significantly lower on scaffolded visualizations than unscaffolded, suggesting better comprehension of the scaffolded visualizations. Both participant groups’ fixation durations decreased over the course of repeated trials in the experiment, suggesting practice improved meaning-making. The fact that novices could make more academic scientific meaning from visualizations of data if exposed more often to meaningful, scaffolded visualizations in all formal and informal learning and communication settings leads to recommendations for exhibit design, visualization design, and instruction on using visualizations in meaning making about science topics

Examining Validity and Coherence in a Cognitively-Based Science Performance Assessment

The purpose of this research was to explore the coherence and effectiveness of an assessment approach that combined principles of cognitive-based assessment, performance assessment, and the Next Generation Science Standards. By drawing on research on learning progressions and cognition in geoscience to design, implement, and analyze an Earth Science performance assessment at the high school level, I explored the challenges and opportunities inherent in a cognitively-based science performance assessment system. The primary research question for this study was: How do cognitively-based performance assessments promote coherence between students’ understanding, responses, and scoring? Four subquestions allowed me to compare observations of student thinking with written responses and scores across multiple modalities in order to characterize the overall coherence of the assessment system. Using a design study approach, an assessment was developed using a two-phase process. First, a construct map was created that outlined a learning progression for each of four geology subdomains: geologic time & stratigraphy; surface processes; plate tectonics; and geologic maps. Second, the construct map guided the development of interconnected performance assessment tasks intended to elicit and measure student thinking within those geology subdomains. Twenty-two high school students engaged in a think-aloud protocol while completing the performance assessment. Student responses from the performance assessment were scored according to a predetermined scoring procedure that generated scores on individual items as well as holistic scores for each construct. Data from student written responses and think-alouds were quantitatively coded in alignment with the cognitive model for the assessment system. I used these data to examine the correlations between student thinking, written responses, and scores, in both item-by-item and holistic modalities. The strength of these correlations varied by construct, but some overall patterns emerged: (1) The design of this cognitively-based science performance assessment was successful in eliciting thinking about all four levels of each construct, and there were instances where student thinking went beyond the intended bounds of specific items. (2) For comparisons of student thinking to written responses or scores, holistic values captured a similar or better level of correlation than individual items, pointing to the important role of holistic scoring in the interpretation phase of this assessment approach. (3) The performance assessment produced scores for three out of four constructs with statistically significant correlations to student thinking. Together, these results show that fully capturing student thinking remains a formidable challenge for the assessment field, but that cognitively-based science performance assessment tasks have significant potential to reveal the extent and breadth of student thinking beyond traditional assessment approaches. The findings in this study have implications for the ways in which different stakeholders in science education, including classroom teachers, curriculum writers, and education leadership, can harness the power of cognitively-based assessment tools to better measure and support student learning

Adult Learning Sign Language by combining video, interactivity and play

One in every six persons in the UK suffers a hearing loss, either as a condition they have been born with or a disorder they acquired during their life. 900,000 people in the UK are severely or profoundly deaf and based on a study by Action On Hearing Loss UK in 2013 only 17 percent of this population, can use the British Sign Language (BSL). That leaves a massive proportion of people with a hearing impediment who do not use sign language struggling in social interaction and suffering from emotional distress, and an even larger proportion of Hearing people who cannot communicate with those of the deaf community. This paper presents a theoretical framework for the design of interactive games to support learning BSL supporting the entire learning cycle, instruction, practice and assessment. It then describes the proposed design of a game based on this framework aiming to close the communication gap between able hearing people and people with a hearing impediment, by providing a tool that facilitates BSL learning targeting adult population. The paper concludes with the planning of a large scale study and directions for further development of this educational resource

The student-produced electronic portfolio in craft education

The authors studied primary school students’ experiences of using an electronic portfolio in their craft education over four years. A stimulated recall interview was applied to collect user experiences and qualitative content analysis to analyse the collected data. The results indicate that the electronic portfolio was experienced as a multipurpose tool to support learning. It makes the learning process visible and in that way helps focus on and improves the quality of learning. © ISLS.Peer reviewe

Spatial Thinking in Astronomy Education Research

Multiple studies show that spatial thinking skills contribute to students’ performance in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. The study of astronomy is no different with the understanding of many astronomical phenomena requiring spatial thinking skills. This paper describes traditional and contemporary approaches to characterizing and measuring spatial thinking skills and suggests how they inform research in astronomy education. It summarizes previous literature in astronomy education research and categorizes the research approaches of astronomy education peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings that explicitly consider the role of spatial thinking. Additionally, it recommends directions and curricular approaches for astronomy education research informed by current research in spatial thinking