New Perspectives in Science Education

We created a body of geoscience video demonstrations and virtual reality (VR) field trips used in an introductory geology course at a regional university in Pennsylvania and examined the impact of these videos on student confidence, performance, and their overall attitudes towards learning geology using a mixed methods sequential explanatory design. Well-developed video resources provide instructors with a flexible tool to assist with instruction. The development of a rich supply of video resources provides another pedagogical tool for instructors engaged in virtual teaching. With in-person instruction, they can support a flipped classroom model and allow instructors to devote class time to explain challenging concepts, check for understanding, and promote active learning environments. Virtual reality tools provide instructors with an opportunity to customize the learning experience and take students on a tour of locations they might not otherwise be able to visit. The instructional demonstrations covered concepts such as relative time, sea floor spreading, lava viscosity and included field trips to Yosemite and Crater Lake National Parks. Throughout the course, students watched a demonstration video or virtual field trip and answered select-response questions. During a later exam students answered questions specifically associated with the video content while also rating their answer confidence using a ten-point scale. Open-ended student comments were collected from a four-question survey at the end of each semester. Our findings from both the quantitative data and quantitative data analysis suggest that the use of the demonstration videos and VR field trips had a positive impact on student learning of geological concepts. Qualitative findings affirmed the voice and personalization principles of the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning.