Victoria C. Stewart

Our project introduced students in grades 7 through 12 to spatial thinking and geospatial technologies in the context of challenges in their community. We used a mix of levels of inquiry to advance learning from teacher- to student-guided through a citizen mapping group activity. Student-suggested problem-based topics included parks and community gardens, crime, housing, and youth employment opportunities. Qualitative methods were used to evaluate students’ knowledge of spatial thinking and geospatial technologies, including map interpretation, a case study, daily exit slips, and interviews. Overall, the students’ awareness of their community, spatial thinking, and geospatial technologies increased as a result of participation.

This chapter provides a practical example of how to use an experiential learning approach to promote both guided and open inquiry and to enhance students' spatial, civic understanding, a sample of our research findings will help bridge the link between theory and practice. Concepts described as essential to critical pedagogy are also those important to civic engagement and active citizenship. Understanding the geographic realities of a place, such as the physical environment, resources, and the impact of the people living there, supports civic praxis. The statement, think locally, act globally, also served as a metaphor for our approach to curriculum development, in our understanding of learners and their interactions with content and their environment. Citizen, or community, mapping tends to be a localized activity, but it is linked also to global, universal issues. Citizen mapping can empower people and raise awareness of issues in their communities and beyond.

Preparing students to become active, participatory citizens is more than promoting personal responsibility. It requires actively engaging with others in order to improve one’s community. Using a critical geography approach, this article describes research with students living in urban areas that engaged them in fieldwork and citizen mapping of the neighborhood around their high school. We were interested in how they interacted with this environment and their perceptions of social justice issues in the community. Student groups worked together to identify and investigate topics of their choosing in order to produce and present their findings and recommendations to community stakeholders. We collected data from these students through case studies, sketch maps, and interviews, which revealed an increase in understanding of their neighborhood and an appreciation for the use of spatial thinking and technologies in addressing issues that they care about as citizens.

Onwuegbuzie and colleagues proposed the Instrument Development and Construct Validation (IDCV) process as a mixed methods framework for creating and validating measures. Examples applying IDCV are lacking. We provide an illustrative case integrating the Rasch model and cognitive interviews applied to the development of the Transformative Experience Questionnaire (TEQ). TEQ measures student engagement with the content they are learning. IDCV process yielded a high degree of utility for informing the psychometric properties of the TEQ. The quantitative data yielded supportive content, construct, and concurrent-related validity evidence using a sample of middle (n = 115) and high school students (n = 81). The qualitative data revealed item rewording was needed. Moderate to strong test–retest reliability was found for both forms.

The process of becoming a qualitative researcher is fraught with challenges that are not always knowable prior to engaging in research. Coursework, reading, discussions, and writing about the process provide a foundation but cannot replace the experiential value of engaging in research. This autobiographical intrinsic case study describes the author’s first attempt conducting qualitative research as a doctoral student documenting additional challenges after the participant, my mother, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Using document analysis, I chronicled and made meaning of this first experience, especially how my relationship with the participant impacted my understanding and applying the concepts of rapport, reflexivity, subjectivity, and intersubjectivity.

This small n observational study used a concurrent mixed methods approach to address a void in the literature with regard to the qualitative meaningfulness of the data yielded by absolute magnitude estimation scaling (MES) used to rate subjective stimuli. We investigated whether respondents’ scales progressed from less to more and provided for meaningful discriminations, similarities and differences in how they defined their scales, and whether their definitions were congruent with how they used their scales. The respondents completed a think-aloud task while using MES and a follow-up interview regarding how they used MES and defined their scales. The respondents’ scales did not yield meaningful data. Implications for survey research and the use of mixed methods in rating scale construction are discussed.

Changes in high school students’ (n = 94) conceptions of natural selection were examined as a function of motivational beliefs (individual interest, academic self-efficacy), basic prior knowledge, and gender across three assessments (pre, post, follow-up). Results from variable-centered analyses suggested that these variables had relatively little effect on enduring conceptual change; however, academic self-efficacy supported short-term conceptual change for girls. Results from person-centered analyses provided a different picture. Four profiles of motivational beliefs and basic prior knowledge were created using hierarchical cluster analysis: (a) low interest/efficacy, low knowledge; (b) moderate interest/efficacy, low knowledge; (c) moderate-low interest, moderate efficacy, high knowledge; and (d) high interest/efficacy, moderate knowledge. For girls, high interest and efficacy paired with moderate basic prior knowledge (Cluster 4) resulted in the greatest conceptual change. For boys, either moderate interest and efficacy paired with high knowledge (Cluster 3) or high interest and efficacy paired with moderate knowledge (Cluster 4) resulted in the greatest enduring conceptual change.

The Teaching for Transformative Experiences in Science (TTES) model is designed to foster transformative experiences (e.g., experiences with science content involving the application of that content in ways that expand perception and value in everyday experience). This study presents a case study of a high school biology teacher learning to implement the TTES model in conjunction with a conceptual change model and evaluates the impact of these models on students’ learning and engagement. In collaboration with the authors, the teacher created three instructional conditions: (a) control (2 classes, 40 students), (b) cognitive conflict (CC, 2 classes, 42 students), and (c) combined TTES and cognitive conflict (TE, 2 classes, 44 students). Descriptive data illustrate how the teacher implemented the models, particular challenges that arose, how the teacher's prior beliefs and goals shaped the implementation, and how experience with the models altered the teacher's beliefs and engagement with the content. Comparative analyses across conditions illustrate that students in the TE condition displayed more transformative engagement in class but did not report a greater level of independent transformative experiences. Regular-level students in the intervention conditions (CC, TE) displayed greater change in basic knowledge and regular-level students in the TE condition displayed more enduring transfer. Honors-level students in the intervention conditions (CC, TE) displayed greater conceptual change, but not greater transfer.

This study investigated the prevalence of transformative experiences, antecedents of transformative experience, and the relation between transformative experience and deep‐level learning (conceptual change and transfer) for high school biology students (N = 166). Results suggested that the high school students in our sample typically engaged in low levels of transformative experience with respect to biology, but those students who strongly identified with science and who endorsed a mastery goal orientation were more likely to report engagement in higher levels of transformative experience. Furthermore, a higher level of engagement in transformative experience was positively associated with (a) conceptual change in understanding the concept of natural selection, but not inheritance, at the post‐ and follow‐up assessments and (b) transfer at the follow‐up assessment. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 94:1–28, 2010