Campus Units

Geological and Atmospheric Sciences

Document Type

Article

Publication Version

Published Version

Publication Date

8-2015

Journal or Book Title

Journal of Geoscience Education

Volume

63

Issue

3

First Page

222

Last Page

232

DOI

10.5408/14-055.1

Abstract

In this paper we describe student use of a series of connected online problem-solving activities to remediate atmospheric carbon budget misconceptions held by undergraduate university students. In particular, activities were designed to address a common misconception about conservation of mass when students assume a simplistic, direct relationship between atmospheric CO2 concentrations and carbon emissions. This particular misconception was challenged through an instructional intervention applying constructivist learning theory principles in an effort to prompt cognitive dissonance and induce conceptual change. This study is based on 1 y of data collected from a survey completed by introductory physical geology students (n = 176), divided into a control group (n = 127) and an experimental group (n = 49). The students in the experimental group worked on an instructional intervention targeting identified misconceptions during a laboratory session. Both the control group and the experimental group were presented information targeting the same misconception through a traditional lecture. Students completing the instructional intervention demonstrated significant increases in learning and reductions of misconceptions relative to students in the control group. However, some aspects of the misconceptions seemed to persist.

Comments

This article is from Journal of Geoscience Education 63 (2015): 222, doi: 10.5408/14-055.1.

Rights

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright Owner

National Association of Geoscience Teachers

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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