CLASS 

(Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey)

 
 

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INFORMED CONSENT DOCUMENT
 

 

Geoscience 1020 Students

Please enter your name (Last, First):
Please enter the last 6 digits of your student ID number:
What time is your lecture?
   Tues/Thurs. 9:30 AM (Eberle)     Tues/Thurs. 12:30 PM (Mojzsis) 

Introduction  - Beliefs about geological science and learning science

Here are a number of statements that may or may not describe your beliefs about geological science and about learning geological science. We are asking you to complete this survey because knowing how students beliefs about geological science change and/or remain the same as they progress through the geological science courses helps us in our teaching. You are asked to rate each statement by selecting a number between 1 and 5 where the numbers mean the following:

  1. Strongly Disagree
  2. Disagree
  3. Neutral
  4. Agree
  5. Strongly Agree

Choose one of the above five choices that best expresses your feeling about the statement. If you don't understand a statement, leave it blank. If you have no strong opinion, choose 3.

We are asking that you express your own beliefs. Your answers will not affect your grade. The class's results will be shared with the instructor and the department, but your individual responses will NOT be associated with your name. This information will be very helpful to us in an effort to design more effective geological science courses.

Survey (8-10 minutes)
  1. A significant problem in learning geoscience is being able to memorize all the information I need to know.
    Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree
    not answered

  2. I think about the geoscience I experience in everyday life.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  3. Knowledge in geoscience consists of many disconnected topics.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  4. As geoscientists learn more, most geoscience ideas we use today are likely to be proven wrong.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  5. I find that reading the text in detail is a good way for me to learn geoscience.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  6. I am not satisfied until I understand why something works the way it does.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  7. I cannot learn geoscience if the teacher does not explain things well in class.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  8. I study geoscience to learn knowledge that will be useful in my life outside of school.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  9. I can usually make sense of how earth systems act.
    Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree
    not answered

  10. Nearly everyone is capable of understanding geoscience if they work at it.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  11. Understanding geoscience basically means being able to recall something you've read or been shown.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  12. Why earth systems act the way they do does not usually make sense to me; I just memorize what happens.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  13. To understand geoscience I discuss it with friends and other students.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  14. I do not spend more than five minutes stuck on a geoscience problem before giving up or seeking help from someone else.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  15. If I want to apply a method used for solving one geoscience problem to another problem, the problems must involve very similar situations.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  16. I enjoy solving geoscience problems.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  17. We use this statement to discard the survey of people who are not reading the questions. Please select agree (not strongly agree) for this question.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  18. It is important for the government to approve new scientific ideas before they can be widely accepted.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  19. Learning geoscience changes my ideas about how the world works.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  20. To learn geoscience, I only need to memorize terms and their definitions.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  21. Reasoning skills used to understand geoscience can be helpful to me in my everyday life.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  22. Spending a lot of time understanding where mathematical formulas come from is a waste of time.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  23. I can usually figure out a way to solve geoscience problems.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  24. The subject of geoscience has little relation to what I experience in the real world.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  25. To understand geoscience, I sometimes think about my personal experiences and relate them to the topic being analyzed.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  26. It is possible to explain geoscience ideas without mathematical formulas.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  27. If I get stuck on a geoscience problem, there is no chance I'll figure it out on my own.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  28. Spending a lot of time understanding why earth systems behave and react the way they do is a waste of time.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  29. When studying geoscience, I relate the important information to what I already know rather than just memorizing it the way it is presented.
    Strongly Disagree12345Strongly Agree
    not answered

  30. When I'm thinking about geoscience, I often don't really understand the underlying ideas.
    Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree
    not answered

  31. Nothing interesting can be learned from rocks
    Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree
    not answered

  32. When I think of something happening in nature, I have a sense of the timescale over which the phenomenon evolves.
    Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree
    not answered

  33. Geologic discoveries made today are important for the future .
    Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree
    not answered

  34. In learning geology, I usually memorize the end result rather than make sense of the underlying physical concepts.
    Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree
    not answered

  35. Geology is not as scientific as other sciences .
    Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree
    not answered

 

 

 


Introduction - Survey about Geologic Ideas

Choose the choice that you think best answers the questions asked. Your answers will not affect your grade. The overall class's results will be shared with the instructor and the department but your individual responses will NOT be associated with your name. This information will be very helpful to us in an effort to design more effective geological science courses.

Survey (15-20 minutes)

  1.  Scientists claim that they can determine when the Earth first formed as a planet.  Which technique do scientists use today to determine when the Earth first formed?

    (A) Comparison of fossils found in rocks

    (B) Comparison of different layers of rock

    (C) Analysis of uranium and lead in rock

    (D) Analysis of carbon in rock

    (E) Scientists cannot calculate the age of the Earth


  2. If life as we know it today existed on the Earth during the first 2.5 billion years of Earth history, what might have been the biggest challenge to that life’s survival?

    (A) Shortage of suitable land to live on

    (B) Shortage of water

    (C) Shortage of oxygen

    (D) Shortage of food

    (E)  Lack of sunlight


  3.  Today, oxygen makes up about 21% of the gasses in the Earth’s atmosphere and that oxygen is critical for the survival of most life on Earth.  Where did that oxygen come from?

    (A) That much oxygen has always been present in the Earth’s atmosphere

    (B) It gradually accumulated over billions of years due to the generation of oxygen by plants during photosynthesis

    (C) Oxygen immediately became abundant in the atmosphere when algae evolved

    (D) From meteorites that hit early in Earth’s history.

     

  4.  What did the Earth's surface look like when it first formed?

     (A) One large landmass surrounded by water

    (B) All water and no land

    (C) Similar to today

    (D) Molten rock and no water .

    (E) We have no way of knowing.

     

  5.  Geologists argue that in multiple times in Earth’s history there was only a single continent. Which of the following statements best describes how a single continent might originate?

    (A) Meteors hit the Earth causing all the existing continents to move together

    (B) Magma rose from within the earth and cooled into one big continent.

    (C) The Earth lost heat over time and shrank, which pulled the continents together

    (D) Material beneath the continents moved, causing all the continents to flow together and collide into each other.

    (E) As magma cools, the less dense material rises above denser material.


  6. How could scientists determine if a single continent actually existed? 

    (A) Determining of continents past positions from the magnetism in the rocks.

    (B) Studying the distribution of fossils found in rocks

    (C) Determining when ancient mountain chains on different continents formed

    (D) Through comparison of rocks now on different continents

    (E) All of the above.


  7. How long does it take for mountains like the Colorado Rockies to form?

    (A) Hundreds of thousands of years

    (B) Millions of years

    (C) Hundreds of millions of years

    (D) Billions of years

    (E) It is impossible to tell how long the break up would have take.


  8. Scientists claim that even without using radioactive dating they can determine if two different sedimentary rocks in two different places formed at the same time. Which technique do scientists use to do this? 

    (A) Comparison of fossils found in the rocks

    (B) Comparison of the thickness between the two sedimentary rocks

    (C) Analysis of uranium, lead or carbon in rock

    (D) Scientists cannot determine if two sedimentary rocks formed at the same time


  9. Which of the figures below do you think most closely represents changes in life on Earth over time? Choose one:           

    (A) Figure A

    (B) Figure B

    (C) Figure C

    (D) Figure D

    (E) Figure E

     


  10. A scientist collects all of the fossils ever discovered into one room. This room now contains:

    (A) Fossils of a few of the plants and animals that ever lived

    (B) Fossils of most of the plants and animals that ever lived

    (C) Fossils of all of the plants and animals that ever lived



  11.  Which of the plots on the right show what paleontologists interpret to be the pattern of diversity of life through time?

    (A) Figure A

    (B) Figure B

    (C) Figure C

    (D) Figure D

    (E) Figure E

     


  12. If you could travel back in time to when life first appeared on the Earth, what type of life do you think you might encounter?

    (A) Simple, one-celled organisms in water

    (B) Small animals on land

    (C) Animal and plant life in water, but no life on land

    (D) All types of life in water and on land, except people.

    (E) All types of life in water and on land, including people.


  13. If a geologist thinks a 500-million year old rock might have formed in a river, what might they do to test that idea?

    (A) Look for the river that might have formed the rock.

    (B) Compare the features of the rock to the features of sediment laid down by a modern river

    (C) It is impossible for the geologic to test if a rock came from a river

    (D) Determine the force needed for a river to move the rock.


  14.  If you wanted to figure out what was land and what was ocean 200 hundred millions years ago in the western U.S. when a particular layer of sedimentary rock was formed, which of the following information would be useful to you?

    (A) The types of fossils that formed in that layer of rock

    (B) The size of the grains in the layer of rock that formed then.

    (C) How quickly the rock is eroding.

    (D) The proportion of radioactive isotopes in the rock.


  15.  If you found a 400 million-year old rock layer four inches thick of cooled lava in New York, what would that tell you?

    (A) There was at least one volcano 400 million years ago in what is now the northeastern US.

    (B) There were one or more volcanoes somewhere in the North American continent that blew up 400 million years ago

    (C) Very little, the lava could have come in from anywhere on the earth at anytime before the present


  16. What is climate?

    (A) Temperature and rainfall averaged over many decades.

    (B) Daily weather conditions

    (C) Change to the atmosphere as a result of man’s activities

    (D)  Difference in temperature and rainfall between summer and winter.  


  17. Where does the energy come from that drives climate?

    (A) Radioactive decay inside the Earth

    (B) The spinning of the Earth on its axis

    (C) The Sun only

    (D) The rotation of the Earth about the Sun

    (D) The wind


  18.  Which of the following evidence would geologists find useful to distinguish between very warm and very cold climates in the ancient past?

    (A) Distribution of sedimentary rocks such as evaporates and coal

    (B) Distribution and types of fossils

    (C) Radioactive isotopes in rocks and fossils

    (D)  A and B, only

    (E)  A, B, and C


  19. What is the role of the oceans in determining climate?

    (A) Ocean current moves heat from the equator to the poles

    (B) Oceans store large quantities of greenhouse gases

    (C) Oceans store large quantities of heat

    (D) A and C only

    (E) A, B, and C

     

  20. If an exceptionally large amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) gas was incorporated into plants and then buried in sediments over hundred of thousands to millions of years, what might happen to global air temperatures?

    (A) Most of the Earth's air would be colder

    (B) Most of the Earth's air would be warmer

    (C) Temperatures would be unchanged

Additional Questions

Your background:

  1. Currently, what is your level of interest in geosciences?
     
    Very Low
    Low
    Moderate
    High
    Very High
    		  
    		not answered
    Why?


  2. During the semester, my interest in geosciences?
     
    Decreased a lot
    Decreased somewhat
    Stayed the same
    Increased somewhat
    Increased a lot
    		  
    		not answered

    Why?

     
  3. What is your current declared major?

  4. If you plan to change your major, please choose the major you intend to switch to.

  5. What is your gender?

Please let us know about your learning experience in this course:

  1. Your overall assessment of how much you learned in this course is:
      Almost nothing    A small amount    A reasonable amount    Quite a bit    A great deal   

  2. On average, how many hours per week did you spend on this course outside of lecture?  
    3.   

  3. How frequently did you interact with the instructor in either one-on-one or small group discussions during the semester:
    Never    Once or twice this semester    About once a month    Twice a month    Once a week
       
    Would you prefer to have more opportunities to have one-on-one interaction with your instructor and/or teaching assistant
    Yes    No   Maybe      

    If a one credit recitation section was available with this course, would you be interested in signing up for it?
    Yes    No   Maybe 

    Why?


  4. How much of the textbook reading did you do for this course?

    5. None  A small amount    A reasonable amount    Quite a bit    A great deal   

  5. How helpful were the following for your learning? (Mark N/A if you did not attempt to use this resource for help or if it was not available))

     
    Not helpful at all
    Not very helpful
    Somewhat helpful
    Very helpful
    Not answered
    The textbook
    Pure lecture/presentation by the instructor - (e.g. powerpoint slides only)
    Homework
    Exam review sessions
    Clickers
    In-class activities (e.g. class discussions)
    Instructor office hours

     

  6. Please let us know what you think about homework that was given in this class.


    7. In general, on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being easiest, 5 being most difficult), how challenging was the homework in this class?
      
    Easiest 1 2 3 4 5 Most Challenging
              not answered
    On average, how many hours per assignment did you spend completing homework for this course?      

    What is your opinion about homework that was given in this course?

     

  7. Please let us know what you think the clickers/in-class questions that were used in this class.


    8. In general, on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being easiest, 5 being most difficult), how challenging were the clickers/in-class questions in this class?
      
    Easiest 1 2 3 4 5 Most Challenging
              not answered

    Some clicker questions ask you to think, apply, or synthesize information in new ways. How many of the clicker questions in the course are “challenging conceptual” questions?
     
     
    none
    few
    half
    most
    all
    		  
     
    		        not answered

    To what extent do THESE kinds of challenging conceptual clicker questions help you learn the material in this course?
     
     
    No help
    A little help
    Moderate help
    Much Help
    Very much help
    		 
     
    		        not answered

    Some clicker questions ask you to recall facts or previous information. How many of the clicker questions in the course are “factual recall” questions?
     
     
    none
    few
    half
    most
    all
    		  
     
    		        not answered

      To what extent do THESE kinds of factual recall clicker questions help you learn the material in this course?
     
     
    No help
    A little help
    Moderate help
    Much Help
    Very much help
    		 
     
    		        not answered
     

    What is your opinion about the clickers/ in-class questions that were used in this course? Is there anything you think the instructor should know?


  8. Think about one geoscience idea you feel you really understand and learned from this course. Describe when, in all the different types of activities (lecture, homework, reading, lab, discussion, exam, etc...) centered around that topic, it really clicked..

    What was one geoscience idea you feel you did not really understand and learned from this course? In your opinion how necessary is it for you to understand that idea?

  9. Are there any changes or modifications to the course that you feel would have increased your learning?


We thank you for taking the time to fill out this survey. Your participation is really helpful because knowing more about students' beliefs about geoscience and about learning geoscience helps improve our teaching practices.

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