248 Geoscience Education (Posters)

Wednesday, 3 November 2010
8:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Hall D

RETENTION IN GEOSCIENCES: WHAT INFLUENCES STUDENTS TO CONTINUE BEYOND AN INTRODUCTORY UNDERGRADUATE COURSE?

Paper number: 248-8
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Authors

Abstract

Students decide to enroll in introductory geoscience courses for a variety of reasons, most commonly to fulfill a general education requirement. At the conclusion of their introductory geoscience course, we asked students whether they planned to take another geology course. Over 800 students were surveyed from 7 institutions and 14 different instructors (public and private universities and colleges) for demographic and affective characteristics. We used the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich et al., 1993) as part of GARNET Project (Geoscience Affective Research Network) to determine student motivations (e.g., goal orientation and control beliefs) and learning strategies (e.g., study methods, critical thinking, metacognition). We also collected demographic, performance, and interest information from the students, both at the beginning and end of the semester.

Preliminary analysis indicates that students from under-represented race/ethnicity groups and female students tend to have a lower interest in continuing with another geology course. Students with a low prior interest in science and those enrolling to fulfill a general education requirement are less likely to continue. In addition, those students who perceive it will be an easy course are less likely to plan to take another geology course. Students who enter the course with high intrinsic motivation and task value leave the course with a higher likelihood of taking another geoscience course. Additionally, students who show the largest drop in motivational scores during the introductory course also leave with a low interest for continuing. Students at the beginning of the semester who are hesitant to commit to a science degree are somewhat more likely to indicate interest in pursuing a science degree after taking introductory geology. Further, undecided majors were more likely to say they planned to take another geology course than students who had declared any major, even more than students from other STEM fields. Our initial results suggest is that geoscience majors may more likely come from students with initial high scores in motivation and those that have not yet declared a major.