Research on Cognitive Domain in Geoscience Courses: Temporal and Spatial Reasoning (Cog A)

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Authors: Katherine Ryker, University of South Carolina; Scott Brande, University of Alabama at Birmingham; Mariana Guereque, The University of Texas at El Paso; Alison Jaeger, Temple University, and Julie Libarkin, Michigan State University

Jump Down To: Grand Challenge 1 | Grand Challenge 2 | Grand Challenge 3 |

Introduction

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Figure 1. Developing a geoscience understanding of Earth processes requires thinking across different spatial and temporal scales, such as those involved with changing El Niño-La Niña conditions inferred from NASA sea surface height anomaly data in the equatorial Pacific Ocean as shown here. Figure originally created by Kirk and Pisolesi for the cover of Kastens and Manduca (2012), Earth and Mind II: A Synthesis of Research on Thinking and Learning in the geosciences. GSA, v. 486.

Provenance: Image created by Karin Kirk and Linda Pisolesi for the cover of Kastens, Kim A., and Cathryn A. Manduca, eds. Earth and mind II: a synthesis of research on thinking and learning in the geosciences. Vol. 486. Geological Society of America, 2012.
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The geosciences are characterized by their particular application of and reliance on temporal and spatial reasoning. Geoscientists must be able to apply their knowledge across a variety of scales. In the words of Arthur Conan Doyle, "From a drop of water, a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other. So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it." Geoscientists should be able to look at, say, physical and chemical differences in sedimentary layers from a core of the seafloor and infer changes in erosional patterns (spatial) over time (temporal). The ability to engage with this kind of task represents a great shift in thinking from where most students begin their studies, be that in K-12 or college. In order to understand how people's ability to spatial and temporal reasoning how that thinking changes over time requires

While more is known about how people reason spatially as compared with temporally, there are still significant gaps in our understanding of spatial reasoning in the geosciences. We believe that there are opportunities to build on lessons learned from previous investigations of spatial thinking, including how a community can investigate a specific line of reasoning (e.g. the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center, or SILC). There is also a need to build on established research from other domains, including cognitive psychology and anthropology.

We identified three Grand Challenges to better understanding spatial and temporal reasoning. These include identifying what reasonings or skills are essential to the geosciences (both broadly and within subdisciplines), and the intertwined challenge of how to assess those reasonings and use those results to improve on what students are learning from their geoscience experiences. We also see an additional grand challenge as being the need to connect with and build on the work done by other disciplines and communities.

Jump Down to: Grand Challenge 1 | Grand Challenge 2 | Grand Challenge 3 | Grand Challenge 4

Grand Challenge 1: What are the types of spatial and temporal reasoning essential to the geosciences, and where do research gaps remain within this domain?

Rationale

In order to make sure our work is relevant to the broad geoscience education community, we first need to understand what the key spatial and temporal tasks that we want students to be able to tackle are to that community. Essential types of spatial and temporal reasonings need to be "mapped" so that we know where the gaps are.

Research Strategies

• Kastens & Manduca (2012) created concept maps of Spatial Thinking and Temporal Thinking in Geosciences (below). These should be revisited and updated. One idea to illustrate where gaps exist in our understanding would be to make these concept maps interactive. For example, node color could indicate the thoroughness of study and clicking on each node would bring up citations for relevant studies. However this update is done, revised maps of the landscape will help us identify strengths and gaps and identify dimensions on which mapping needs to happen.

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Figure 2. Kastens and Manduca's (2012) concept maps of spatial and temporal thinking in the geosciences may serve as a starting point for an important next step in research: creating a map of the various kinds of spatial and temporal reasoning skills and the geoscience specialties that rely on these skills. For example, being able to apply the principle of superposition to a rock outcrop is a specific skill that could be mapped onto the sequence type of temporal thinking.

Provenance: Katherine Ryker, University of South Carolina-Columbia
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• Researchers should consider whether there are different essentials reasonings for different aspects of the geosciences, for example remote sensing, field work, and mineralogy. These essential reasonings are the different skills and abilities that help people function in their roles.
• Select specific, well-defined areas of geoscience and have people in those fields describe the spatial and temporal tasks they do as part of their job in focus groups. We recommend that focus groups might help elicit more ideas than one-on-one interviews or surveys. This cognitive task analysis with specific experts could be used to identify the most important, or essential, spatial and temporal reasoning tasks they do. This could also be completed as a modified Delphi study, or by studying geoscientists doing expert tasks, and coding for different reasonings being used.

Grand Challenge 2: How can geoscience education foster spatial and temporal reasoning, and how can assessment measure spatial and temporal reasoning?

Rationale

With an understanding of the essential types of spatial and temporal reasoning for the geosciences, we can then proceed to assess how these reasonings change over time in response to different learning experiences. We want to know how best to teach students to accomplish tasks that rely on these essential reasonings. This leads to the development of two intertwined challenges: assessing those reasonings and developing strategies that foster them. This is not to suggest that an exhaustive list of reasonings must first be developed before these two intertwined Grand Challenges can be addressed. Rather, researchers should first establish that the particular reasoning they are studying is critical to some aspect of success in the geosciences. Following that, it is imperative that the correct measurement tools are used. Many tools already exist, especially to assess spatial thinking (see spatiallearning.org for some examples), while others likely need to be developed.

Research Strategies

• A comprehensive literature review would be of great benefit in establishing what assessment tools already exist and what they measure.
• Researchers might have students complete sorting tasks (e.g. in order of size or amount of time) to better understand at what scales that reasoning begins to fall apart.
• Recognize that learning requires students to be engaged, select relevant information, organize that information, and integrate it with prior knowledge. Identify features of different instructional techniques (including timing) that impact each of these stages, and whether they impact one phase more than another.
• Both novices and experts utilize their intuition in assessing spatial and temporal problems, but novices can suffer from inappropriate or "over-zealous" transfer. Researchers can identify explicit models that novices and experts are relying on to do these kinds of thinking.
• Study transferability from general, content-agnostic skills to discipline-specific skills and possibly vice-versa. Does training in a content-agnostic skill influence the development of a discipline-specific skill in any way?
• Develop studies that get at why certain techniques work better than another.
• Identifying or developing additional metrics to assess the spatial and cognitive structure of geoscience tasks.
• Mapping learning progressions for tasks involving either spatial or temporal reasoning.
• To what extent is transfer possible between content-agnostic and domain-specific tasks? For example, analyzing patterns of erosion and deposition in a stream requires an application of the broad concept of vectors; studying patterns of climate change requires students to do work in both spatial (scaling up from a local to global level) and temporal domains (change over time).

Grand Challenge 3: How can we reach out to other domains/communities to explore spatial and temporal reasoning?

Rationale

We recognize that the geosciences are not the only field interested in developing and using spatial and temporal reasoning. We can and should draw on other fields, including cognitive science and psychometrics. Other DBER areas, like Physics Education Research, have already done significant groundwork that could be built upon.

Research Strategies

• Research on spatial and temporal thinking in the geosciences should be informed by other fields and the results of their research. To do this, we need to identify domains, communities and disciplines most likely to have knowledge related to the other Grand Challenges and connect with them. Some examples of relevant communities include cognitive psychology, educational psychology, learning sciences, linguistics, AI, education, communication, economics, anthropology, ethnography, cognitive neuroscience, evolutionary biology, art and design, data/media literacy, and sociology. In order to identify what domain to connect with, it is likely that researchers need to think carefully about a content-agnostic equivalent of the task in which they are trying to train students.
• Identify potentially relevant Science of Learning centers.
• Host something like a Gordon research conference to create interdisciplinary conference around spatial and temporal reasoning. This would help bring currently disparate researchers together around a central theme.
• There are far fewer studies of temporal reasoning than spatial reasoning. This represents a large area for research to develop and includes issues of scale and rates.

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