51 Geoscience Education Research: Methods, Frameworks, and Results from Emerging Scholars

This session will highlight empirical research being done in the field of geoscience education as well as the methods and theoretical frameworks that shape our field. Presenters are encouraged to highlight their decision-making process in research studies. New approaches and applications of established methods/frameworks are also encouraged. Early career and student presenters who submitted abstracts to the Totten session will be considered for the Geoscience Education Division’s Totten Awards.

Sunday, 19 October 2025
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
HBGCC, 301A

Employing Student Centered Assessments to Reveal Students’ Learning Outcomes as They Develop Thin Section Analysis Skills

Paper number: 51-5
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 2:40 PM – 2:55 PM

Authors

Abstract

Polarizing light microscopy (PLM) is a core component of undergraduate geology education (e.g., Winchell and Winchell, 1929; Nesse, 2004; Dyar et al 2009). It provides a unique perspective of rocks and insight to the processes which formed them. Geology investigators (e.g., O’Brien, 1978; Singh, 1983; Gunter, 2004; Reinhardt, 2004) offered their perceptions about PLM’s value to geology education with one common theme: PLMs motivate students and help them develop science literacy. Yet developing PLM skills is challenging because students must master new vocabulary; develop an inventory of mental images, cross-referenced with appropriate optical properties; and develop connections between what they view through the microscope and geological locations and processes. Dozens of teaching resources, and numerous studies about improving PLM instruction exist (e.g. Gunter 2004; Perkins 2007; King, 2006; Tetley and Dazcko 2014). However, none of these assess learning measured against objectives through student-centered approaches. In this presentation, I will 1) explain the synergies of three student-centered data collection techniques (Creative Exercises (Lewis et. al, 2010;2011); Thinking-aloud protocols (van Someren, et. al, 1994); and semi-structured interviews) reveal student reasoning; 2) demonstrate how hybrid deductive-inductive data analysis (e.g., Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006; Proudfoot, 2022; Swain, 2018), facilitated with visual displays of graphs analyzed by following the thread (Moran-Ellis et al., 2006 as cited in Dupin & Borglin, 2020) show the ways students form connections between different skills and fundamental geological knowledge. I argue these techniques might apply when assessing skills-based knowledge in other domains, especially those with visual cognition or semiotic components.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 57, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-414799

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