Citizen Science in the classroom: assessing an interactive teaching approach Paula Miles (pjm11@st-andrews.ac.uk) School of Psychology & Neuroscience University of St Andrews

Consumer of Information (Traditional) Generator of Knowledge Introduction Role of University Educators: aid student transition from school pupil to investigative learner Consumer of Information (Traditional) Generator of Knowledge (Interactive) Interactive Approaches: lead to higher levels of satisfaction and understanding (e.g., Fraser et al., 2014; Hake, 1998; Laurillard, 2009)

Citizen Science A biological data collection method defined as: “…scientific activities in which non-professional scientists volunteer to participate in data collection, analysis and dissemination of a scientific project.” (Haklay, 2011, para.3) Application to learning and teaching?

Teaching Styles Traditional Citizen Science Passive (Surface) Active Learn analysis Perform analysis on pre-prepared data set Draw conclusions Traditional Design study; report back to class Complete pre-prepared study Collect data Learn appropriate analysis Perform analysis on class data Citizen Science Passive (Surface) Active (Deep)

Hypotheses The use of an interactive Citizen Science-informed teaching strategy, compared to a Traditional approach, leads to: Greater student satisfaction Greater retention of taught material Two studies: Experienced teacher Novice teacher

Study 1: Method Participants: Design: 216 first year psychology undergraduates 104 completed all 4 testing sessions – this paired data was collated for analysis Design: Repeated measures, mixed design Conditions counterbalanced Each student experienced both styles of teaching twice in the academic year

Study 1: Method Design: Semester 1 Semester 2 Session 1 Session 2 Group 1 Citizen Science Traditional Group 2

Study 1: Method Assessment Tools Measure of Satisfaction: 8 questions pooled to give overall satisfaction score. Examples: How would you rate the organisation of the lab content? The clarity of lab content was? Rating scale ranged from 1 (excellent) to 6 (very poor) Measure of Performance: 10 question multiple choice tests (4 possible answers) Matches standard assessment tools in first year psychology

Study 1: Results Overall Satisfaction Lower Higher Performance *

Study 1: Results by Semester Lower Higher Satisfaction Performance *

Study 2: Method Participants: Design: Semester 1 Semester 2 291 first year psychology undergraduates 105 completed all 4 testing sessions – this paired data was collated for analysis Design: Semester 1 Semester 2 Session 1 Session 2 Session 3 Session 4 Group 1 Citizen Science Traditional Group 2

Study 2: Method Assessment Tools Measure of Satisfaction: 9 questions pooled to give overall satisfaction score. Measure of Performance: 10 question multiple choice tests (4 possible answers) Measure of Student Perception: Content Specific Questions I understand the function of a paired samples t-test I am confident interpreting the results of a paired samples t-test Measure of Mathematics Anxiety (MARS-R): 24 questions: Learning Maths & Maths Evaluation Plake & Parker (1982)

Study 2: Results Overall Satisfaction Lower Higher Performance

Study 2: Results by Semester Lower Higher Satisfaction Performance

Conclusions Interactive Approach (Citizen Science) vs Traditional: No difference in student satisfaction Initially, poorer performance for Citizen science With time, equivalent performance Experienced & novice teachers can use either method Considerations: Surface vs Deep Assessment Time required to implement Citizen Science approach

Ongoing/Future Work Student Confidence Maths Anxiety Assessing Deep learning Application in different year levels Application in other disciplines