Comparing desired workforce skills and reported teaching practices to model students’ experiences in undergraduate geoscience programs

A goal of undergraduate geoscience programs is to prepare students for the geoscience workforce. In order to understand the extent to which programs succeed at this goal, we identified desired workforce skills, compiled undergraduate geoscience program requirements, and mapped workforce skills onto faculty responses to the 2016 National Geoscience Faculty Survey categorized by respondent-provided course names for majors-level courses (n = 1037). We used a Bayesian statistical model to determine the posterior probability of students practicing desired workforce skills in undergraduate geoscience programs, using program profiles as the model prior, conditioned by the likelihood of a student practicing workforce skills in each course category based upon survey responses. Probabilistic Monte Carlo simulations of students in each example program were used to calculate the likely number of courses in which a student practiced each skill. Activities to help students develop skills related to geologic reasoning, working as part of a team, quantitative skills (algebra), applying skills in new scenarios, evaluation of scientific literature, temporal thinking, spatial thinking, written communication, and managing uncertainty are frequently encountered by students; on average, students encounter these activities at least seven times during an undergraduate program. In contrast, students encounter activities to help them develop an understanding of societal relevance and systems thinking, on average, fewer than three times during an undergraduate program. Our results provide a snapshot, via instructors’ reporting, of the state of workforce skill development across undergraduate degree programs, and both the approach and data set can be built upon for future studies.本科地球科学专业的核心培养目标之一，是为地球科学行业输送适配岗位需求的专业人才。为厘清各培养方案在达成该目标方面的实际成效，我们首先明确了地球科学行业所需的从业技能，梳理了本科地球科学专业的培养要求，并按照受访者提供的主修阶段课程名称对课程进行分类，将上述从业技能与2016年全国地球科学教师调研（National Geoscience Faculty Survey）的教师反馈数据进行匹配，本次调研有效样本量为1037（n = 1037）。我们采用贝叶斯统计模型（Bayesian statistical model），以培养方案特征作为模型先验，结合基于调研结果得到的学生在各课程类别中掌握从业技能的似然条件，计算本科地球科学专业学生习得目标从业技能的后验概率。针对每个示例培养方案中的学生，我们开展概率蒙特卡洛模拟（Probabilistic Monte Carlo simulations），以此估算学生在习得每项技能时所修习的课程的大致数量。学生可频繁接触到有助于提升地质推理、团队协作、定量技能（代数）、跨场景技能应用、科学文献评估、时序思维、空间思维、书面沟通以及不确定性管理能力的教学活动；平均而言，学生在本科培养阶段参与这类活动的次数不少于7次。与之相对，学生接触到旨在帮助其理解技能的社会相关性与系统思维的教学活动的平均次数，在本科阶段不足3次。本研究结果通过教师反馈的视角，呈现了当前本科地球科学专业从业技能培养的整体现状，其研究方法与数据集均可为后续相关研究提供拓展基础。