How college geoscience instructors report finding and implementing virtual field experiences for their courses

Abstract

Virtual field experiences (VFEs) are augments to traditional fieldwork in the geosciences that are seeing increasing use in college courses. However, VFEs that are not easily located and implemented in courses by geoscience instructors have little to no value. This qualitative, descriptive study engaged five focus groups of U.S. college geoscience instructors from diverse institutions to investigate how they search for, select, and implement VFEs in their courses. Each 1-to-1.5-h focus group session of 3–7 participants was recorded on video-conferencing software and transcribed for analysis. Findings suggest that instructors consider a wide range of digital resources to be VFEs, including YouTube videos, GigaPans, photos, and websites, as well as open educational resources such as immersive virtual field trips. Instructors invest significant time to search for and adapt VFEs to meet their course needs because most available VFEs, although offering quality content, do not closely target instructors’ learning goals. Instructors recognize that VFEs provide opportunities for students who may not otherwise be able to go into the field, and often find the resources they intend to use through their professional networks. Results of this study may help other instructors search for and implement VFEs more effectively, and may help VFE developers understand what instructors want from VFEs, thereby enabling them to design more flexible and adaptive resources and market their products in places more easily accessible by instructors.