Please consider a submission to Topical Session 191, titled "Quantitative and Qualitative Methods and Results in Geoscience Education." This session may be of particular interest to those workers who want to discuss theory, or who are hardcore number-crunchers, and/or those who are looking to share qualitative methods and results. The GSA description and rationale follow. Thank you!

Description:

Emphasis on pure research or research methodology, and not classroom strategies or teaching tips. Results of qualitative analysis (phenomenologic, ethnographic, etc.) or numerical analysis (ANOVA, nonparametrics, etc.) of actual data; methodology in educational research.

Rationale:

Many discussions of geoscience education research are focused on classroom strategies or teaching tips, in a "what we tried and how students liked it," kind of discussion. While it is important to be able to share our teaching strategies, such discussions in and of themselves often don’t represent pure research. There is often no “deliverable” or “consumable” for other scientists beyond a generic potential to improve one’s teaching. This session aims to provide an opportunity for discussion of research methods and/or actual data analysis, either qualitative or quantitative. Examples of methodological discussions may include (but not be limited to): applications of parametric and nonparametric statistics; generating qualitative data and identifying themes therein; and processing of either qualitative or quantitative data. Examples of analysis and results may include (but not be limited to): analysis of variance, comparison of means or clustering of quantitative data; emergent themes, textual analysis, phenomenology or theoretical frameworks yielded from structured or unstructured interviews and/or focus groups, or some other form of qualitative data.