Why Do Students Take Photographs on Geology Field Trips: Connections Between Motivations and Novelty Space
Year: 2008
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Field trips are a significant aspect to geology programs.Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, OH has a field program called GeoJourney.This program travels for nine weeks around the United States to teach undergraduate students introductory physical geology, historical geology, environmental studies, Native American studies, and critical thinking.To have a successful field trip Orion and Hofstein (1994) suggest that there are distracting factors called novelty space that should be addressed.Novelty space is comprised of three domains, geographic, psychological and cognitive novelty space.There is a fourth novelty space domain, social novelty space, which was created because of the nature of the field trip.Novelty space can be addressed while on a field trip, but if the instructors are unclear when a student was exhibiting high novelty space, then instructors cannot adjust their teachings to help the students.This study determined whether or not photographs could be a behavioral proxy for novelty space while on GeoJourney to help instructors adjust their teaching if necessary.This study was comprised of observations, interviews of the students that attended GeoJourney in fall 2007, the Novelty Space Survey (Elkins & Elkins, 2008), and a self-administered photo spreadsheet.The data from these sources were compared to determine if photographs could be a behavioral proxy for novelty space.The overall hypothesis was if the Novelty Space Survey results per novelty space domain decreased then photographs per novelty space domain should also decrease representing a decrease vi Lastly, I would like to acknowledge Dr. Joe Elkins for providing the idea for my thesis.In addition, if it wasn't for him, I would never have had the opportunity to travel nine weeks around the United States and meet some amazing individuals.
Author: Kelsey Lynn Garner
Institution: Bowling Green State University
Language: English
Subfield: Geography, Planning and Development
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2223988630