Browsing by Author "Nyarko, Samuel Cornelius"

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    Essential Teamwork Skills: Perspectives of Environmental Geoscience Employers
    (TechRxiv, 2022) Nyarko, Samuel Cornelius; Petcovic, Heather L.
    Geoscience employers have increasingly called for the future workforce (students) to demonstrate competence in non-technical skills, including teamwork. This descriptive qualitative study contributes to ongoing efforts to identify the specific practices, skills, habits, and knowledge that make up these desired teamwork competencies in the geosciences. We collected interview data from three online focus group discussions centered around teamwork. Focus group participants (n = 12) were hydrogeology and environmental geology employers and team managers from government, private industry, and nonprofit organizations in the United States. Using a teamwork skills taxonomy model as our conceptual framework, we coded the transcripts to generate three categories of teamwork skills specific to environmental geoscience teams. First, our data indicate that these employers value team transition skills related to specifying goals, interpreting team tasks, identifying resources, and planning. The second category of desired teamwork competencies included action skills such as metacognition, coordination, and mentoring. These skills directly impact successful task completion. The third category captured interpersonal skills such as emotional intelligence, proactive communication, and organization. A fourth category of desired teamwork competencies emerged from data analysis and include ethical skills related to trust, integrity, and humility. This study provides a detailed description of teamwork competencies desired by environmental geoscience employers. We recommend that geoscience instructors consider using techniques such as intentional teaching of teamwork skills, experiential learning, professional development, and teamwork awareness in order to prepare students for workforce expectations.
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    Geoscience Education Perspectives on Integrated, Coordinated, Open, Networked (ICON) Science
    (Wiley, 2022) Fortner, Sarah K.; Manduca, Cathryn A.; Ali, Hendratta N.; Saup, Casey M.; Nyarko, Samuel Cornelius; Othus-Gault, Shannon; Perera, Viranga; Tong, Vincent C. H.; Gold, Anne U.; Furman, Tanya; Arthurs, Leilani; Mulvey, Bridget K.; St. John, Kristen; Singley, Joel G.; Johnson, Elijah Thomas; Witter, Molly; Batchelor, Rebecca L.; Carter, Deron T.; Damas, M. Chantale; LeMay, Lynsey; Layou, Karen M.; Low, Russanne; Wang, Hui Hui; Olson-Sawyer, Kai; Pallant, Amy; Ryker, Katherine; Lukes, Laura; LaDue, Nicole; Ryker, Katherine; van der Hoeven Kraft, Kaatje J.; Earth and Environmental Sciences, School of Science
    Practitioners and researchers in geoscience education embrace collaboration applying ICON (Integrated, Coordinated, Open science, and Networked) principles and approaches which have been used to create and share large collections of educational resources, to move forward collective priorities, and to foster peer-learning among educators. These strategies can also support the advancement of coproduction between geoscientists and diverse communities. For this reason, many authors from the geoscience education community have co-created three commentaries on the use and future of ICON in geoscience education. We envision that sharing our expertise with ICON practice will be useful to other geoscience communities seeking to strengthen collaboration. Geoscience education brings substantial expertise in social science research and its application to building individual and collective capacity to address earth sustainability and equity issues at local to global scales The geoscience education community has expanded its own ICON capacity through access to and use of shared resources and research findings, enhancing data sharing and publication, and leadership development. We prioritize continued use of ICON principles to develop effective and inclusive communities that increase equity in geoscience education and beyond, support leadership and full participation of systemically non-dominant groups and enable global discussions and collaborations.
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    The Integrating Community Engaged Learning through Ethical Reflection (ICELER) Faculty Learning Community Theory of Change and Learning Goals, Years 1-4
    (Stem Education Innovation & Research Institute and the IUPUI Center for Service and Learning, 2022-09-04) Price, Mary F.; Coleman, Martin A.; Fore, Grant A.; Sorge, Brandon H.; Hahn, Tom; Sanders, Elizabeth; Nyarko, Samuel Cornelius; Hatcher, Julie A.
    This document presents the final ICELER theory of change, including annually generated FLC goals that were part of a multi-year institutional transformation grant #1737157 entitled Institutional Transformation: Enhancing IUPUI STEM Curriculum through the Community-Engaged Learning and Ethical Reflection Framework (I-CELER)
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    K-12 trade books’ representation of earthquake safety and protective actions: A content analysis
    (Wiley, 2024) Nyarko, Samuel Cornelius; Sumy, Danielle F.; McBride, Sara K.
    Meaningful learning resources for earthquake safety and survival have become an increasingly important topic among geoscientists, especially educators and researchers. Various members of the public, especially K-12 (ages 5–18) learners, continue to depend on scientific trade books available at their local public and school libraries for information about earthquake concepts. To our knowledge, no research has empirically examined how trade books represent earthquake safety and survival actions. In this research, we combine an iterative qualitative inductive and deductive analysis to explore the representation of earthquake safety and protective actions in 50 trade books. We categorize these actions into time-based practices related to preparedness before an earthquake, protective actions during an earthquake, and recovery after an earthquake. These trade books emphasize preparedness by means of building earthquake-resistant structures and urban planning, and efforts toward community resilience and keeping home supplies. The recommended personal protective action during an earthquake in the United States (“Drop, Cover, and Hold On”) is emphasized in the majority of the trade books, as well as other protective actions related to emotional actions and current technological automated actions such as earthquake early warning systems. Finally, the books highlight actions such as damage evaluation and support as ways to recover after an earthquake. Our findings highlight the issues between accepted earthquake safety and survival actions and the limited and/or inaccurate knowledge represented in some trade books. We provide interpretations of how presentation of limited or inaccurate information may increase confusion about appropriate protective actions. The inclusion of accepted and recommended protective actions in future trade books and the use of earthquake drills in public libraries as a supplement for trade book users may improve understanding and implementation of appropriate actions. We further demonstrate the potential of trade book contents in fostering earthquake education through library-community partnerships.
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    Measurement in STEM education research: a systematic literature review of trends in the psychometric evidence of scales
    (Springer, 2023) Maric, Danka; Fore, Grant A.; Nyarko, Samuel Cornelius; Varma‑Nelson, Pratibha
    Background: The objective of this systematic review is to identify characteristics, trends, and gaps in measurement in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education research. Methods: We searched across several peer-reviewed sources, including a book, similar systematic reviews, conference proceedings, one online repository, and four databases that index the major STEM education research journals. We included empirical studies that reported on psychometric development of scales developed on college/university students for the context of post-secondary STEM education in the US. We excluded studies examining scales that ask about specific content knowledge and contain less than three items. Results were synthesized using descriptive statistics. Results: Our final sample included the total number of N = 82 scales across N = 72 studies. Participants in the sampled studies were majority female and White, most scales were developed in an unspecified STEM/science and engineering context, and the most frequently measured construct was attitudes. Internal structure validity emerged as the most prominent validity evidence, with exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) being the most common. Reliability evidence was dominated by internal consistency evidence in the form of Cronbach’s alpha, with other forms being scarcely reported, if at all. Discussion: Limitations include only focusing on scales developed in the United States and in post-secondary contexts, limiting the scope of the systematic review. Our findings demonstrate that when developing scales for STEM education research, many types of psychometric properties, such as differential item functioning, test–retest reliability, and discriminant validity are scarcely reported. Furthermore, many scales only report internal structure validity (EFA and/or CFA) and Cronbach’s alpha, which are not enough evidence alone. We encourage researchers to look towards the full spectrum of psychometric evidence both when choosing scales to use and when developing their own. While constructs such as attitudes and disciplines such as engineering were dominant in our sample, future work can fill in the gaps by developing scales for disciplines, such as geosciences, and examine constructs, such as engagement, self-efficacy, and perceived fit.
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    The Integrated Community-Engaged Learning and Ethical Reflection (ICELER) Faculty Learning Community Curriculum: 2018-2022
    (2023-12-18) Price, Mary F.; Coleman, Martin A.; Fore, Grant A.; Hess, Justin L.; Sorge, Brandon H.; Hahn, Tom; Sanders, Elizabeth; Nyarko, Samuel Cornelius
    The Integrated Community-Engaged Learning and Ethical Reflection (ICELER) project was funded under the NSF’s Cultivating Cultures for Ethical STEM program (Award #1737157) in 2017 as a five-year institutional transformation grant (see Fore et al., 2018). The ICELER project approaches institutional transformation in teaching and learning on multiple levels including individual and departmental. To effect changes at these two levels, the research team used a faculty learning community (FLC) as a core intervention in the project. This document provides background information on the curriculum used in this FLC, including descriptions of the design features and activities. This report includes an appendices section as well that includes sample assignments and tools used over the four years that the FLC was active. This report is intended as a resource for those interested in learning from, replicating, or adapting it for their own work with faculty.