Undergraduate Fieldwork Research Articles

Unsettling fieldwork: Reflections of Whiteness and anti‐racist practice in the pedagogies of fieldwork

AbstractThis commentary considers the racialised lens through which fieldwork, as a pedagogic practice in Geography, is constructed and experienced. Prompted by narratives in the seminal paper ‘Muddy glee’ exploring the gendered aspects of fieldwork, and my own experiences of delivering undergraduate fieldwork with demographically diverse undergraduate students from a London University, the paper offers a rationale for adopting anti‐racist pedagogic practices in fieldwork. The universality of field experience is questioned as I reflect on how it is shaped by and mediated through racialised societies and spaces. The paper argues for the adoption of an active and explicitly anti‐racist approach to fieldwork with academic teachers and their departments addressing how field practices are shaped by the normative Whiteness of our discipline and, more specifically, White Privilege. The paper continues by offering some actions that field leaders can take to ensure anti‐racist practices in their fieldwork. It concludes by reiterating the positive tone of ‘Muddy glee’ by encouraging colleagues to challenge themselves to actively manage their field practices in ways that support ‘rigorous and critical reflexivity’ (Bracken & Mawdsley, 2004, Area, 36, 282), while centring the well‐being of all our students.

 Reflecting on Professional Identity Through Art: A Case Example

Undergraduate human services programs seek ways to support students as they develop their professional identities. Few, if any studies, have considered the benefits of engaging human services students in art directives as a method for them to reflect on their professional identities. The following is a case example on how an art directive was incorporated in an undergraduate fieldwork course at an urban community college.

Psychology Students’ Understanding of Ethics and Application of Ethical Principles

Background: The American Psychological Association (APA) has called on undergraduate psychology programs to embed training in ethics throughout their curricula. Although guidelines and resources exist, research on students’ understanding of and ability to apply the discipline’s ethical principles is limited. Objective: The purpose of this study was to learn more about psychology students’ perceptions of their undergraduate training in ethics, understanding of what it means to behave ethically, and competence at applying ethical principles. Method: Forty-four psychology students rated their undergraduate coursework and fieldwork training in ethics, described what it means to be ethical, and proposed a department honor code. Responses were independently coded using a rubric based on APA’s five ethical principles. Results: Participants reported that their undergraduate training gave them an adequate understanding of ethics. The majority included at least three ethical principles in their descriptions of ethical behavior but fewer than three principles in their proposed honor codes. Upper-level students rated their fieldwork training in ethics significantly higher than lower-level students. Participants with higher ratings of fieldwork training in ethics included significantly more ethical principles in their honor codes. Conclusion: Findings support APA’s call to embed training on ethics throughout the undergraduate curriculum.

Continuity and Change among the Koras of Bindukata

The Kora is a small tribal group who are mostly found in eastern part of India. Like many other ethnic groups, the Kora had their own distinct culture, customs, rituals and religion. However, in comparison to other major tribal groups in West Bengal, the Kora as a group to date have recevied relatively little research attention. In this article, we reappraise our experience and observation on the social-cultural life of the Kora people of Paschim Medinipur district, which we collected as part of anthropology undergraduate fieldwork in the year 2002. Through an ethnographic re-analysis method, we try to provide a fair glimpse regarding the process where the Kora, as group, is adopting certain Hindu traits. We also look to find the probable reasons that hold the key to understanding the source of continuity and change in Kora communities at large.

O cenário da licenciatura nos Estados Unidos: implicações potenciais para a arte-educação no Brasil

Dois professores dos Estados Unidos que trabalham em programas de arte educação falam de questões atuais decorrentes das recentes políticas que tiveram impacto direto sobre cursos de graduação, trabalho de campo, licenciatura e retenção de professores. O estudo é apresentado a partir da compreensão de um dos autores sobre a arte educação brasileira, através da aprendizagem experiencial e da pesquisa por meio de estudos comparativos. Os autores fornecem um enquadramento contextual do cenário educacional atual nos Estados com a intenção de informar os leitores de tendências que podem ter efeitos negativos semelhantes nas licenciaturas no Brasil. Por fim, os autores compartilham algumas estratégias que implementaram para responder aos desafios pontuados.

Exploring normative whiteness: ensuring inclusive pedagogic practice in undergraduate fieldwork teaching and learning

Higher education commentators have become concerned about how learning and teaching praxis across the sector may unwittingly advantage White British (WB) compared to Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) students. Adopting critical race theory, this article explores these issues in relation to field teaching in geography and related subjects. It reports on primary data collected from students about to attend their first residential field trip. The research shows that WB and BME students approach their first field trip with diverse geographical experiences. The findings indicate a need to reflect critically on our fieldwork routines in order to promote inclusivity in field learning.

Exploring Pre-Service Science Teacher Methods and Strategies for The Driving Questions in Research Inquiry: From Consulting an Instructor to Group Discussion

An important stage in any research inquiry is the development of research questions that need to be answered. The strategies to develop research questions should be defined and described, but few studies have considered this process in greater detail. This study explores pre-service science teachers’ research questions and the strategies they can engage in during inquiry. A total of 59 pre-service science teachers who attended an undergraduate Fieldwork Course participated in the study. A single, holistic case study design was used along with an open-ended questionnaire and documents for data collection. The questionnaire was conducted at the end of the course, and documented inquiry reports were analyzed. The results indicate there are 11 methods for defining driving questions. These range from consulting an instructor to group discussion; 21 different strategies can be produced using these methods. These research question defining methods and strategies should be applied as a coding scheme for future studies and expanded. Any research question defining strategies unfamiliar to pre-service science teachers, such as field trips, brainstorming, and concept maps, should then be taught.

Integrating Undergraduate Fieldwork into the Study of Human Mobility

ABSTRACTFieldwork has long been fundamental to human geography; however, increasingly unreceptive institutional environments have led to a decline in fieldwork in undergraduate human geography programs. We argue that mobility research presents an opportunity to reinvigorate the undergraduate field trip in human geography. We report on a second-year field course to Noosa, Australia, that blends new technologies with conventional survey techniques to capture data on a spectrum of human spatial behaviour. Over the course of a single weekend, students collect GPS traces of tourist mobility, survey businesses on the journey to work, collect residential migration histories and trace population dynamics on Noosa beach. Over the three years the course has been running, students have constructed a large repository of data on this Australian mobility hotspot, of which we report highlights. Results from standardised student course evaluations confirm the pedagogical value of these initiatives for human geography undergraduates.

Fieldwork, heritage and engaging landscape texts

This paper outlines and analyses efforts to critically engage with “heritage” through the development and responses to a series of undergraduate residential fieldwork trips held in the North Coast of Jamaica. The ways in which we read heritage through varied “texts” – specifically, material landscapes, guided heritage tours, visual imagery and creative writing – and how these readings are couched within changing emotional geographies are analysed in relation to specific field-based sites. The study highlights the dynamic nature of heritage landscapes and the creative ways in which they can be understood and represented through diverse forms of engagement and assessment.

The Language of Loss: Modeling a Transformative Narrative of Grief

This article is a fictional narrative that is based on the true experience of the author’s undergraduate fieldwork at a senior retirement community. Through its silences and suffering, the language of loss speaks through Jacob, a grieving widower, as the author compiles her field notes to make sense of his pain. The imagined lens of a patient–counselor dynamic serves an important role in being mindful of the collision between the theoretical and the interpersonal. By interweaving psychological theories and counseling experience, the creative narrative is grounded in the transformative dialectic between patient and counselor as they both navigate the space between grief and recovery. Ultimately, a relational-cultural approach begins to heal all who share the experience of this loss.PERSPECTIVES is a special feature included in this issue of the Journal of Creativity in Mental Health that provides mental health professionals with an opportunity to discuss their positions on a variety of creativity-related topics.In this article, Sophia E. Terazawa, writer and performance artist, shares her perspective on helping a client cope with the death of his wife. The story is based on Sophia’s experience working in a retirement community as part of her undergraduate field work.

Mobile Decision-making in the Cloud (MobiDiC)

AbstractThe Mobile Decision-making in the Cloud (MobiDiC) project sought to create a geographically enabled, online, collaborative environment (geocollaboratory) to support fieldwork in the geosciences, specifically for undergraduate and postgraduate GIS fieldwork. This article begins by reiterating the pedagogic benefits of fieldwork, before discussing the project’s value by integrating social networks and an online infrastructure to enable student collaboration into the normal fieldwork paradigm using a GIS fieldtrip to Malta as a case study. We evaluate the approach using an exercise that was repeated over two days with identical goals but different instructional methodologies. The innovative approach enhanced staff — student communication, reflective learning and inquiry-based learning during a week-long fieldtrip to Malta for GIS students through widespread use of mobile technology and social networks. The approach was awarded an Innovation in GIS award at the Esri(UK) conference in 2010 and Best Mul...

Using problem-based learning in large undergraduate fieldwork classes: an Australian example

Problem-based learning (PBL) is one of a suite of strategies based on the premise that placing students at the centre of the learning process ultimately improves skills, knowledge and understanding. To date, however, there remain relatively few reports on the application of PBL within geography curricula. This paper traces the evolution of a PBL project in a first-year geography course with large student enrolments. It shows that while the adoption of PBL was challenging, the majority of students found the approach rewarding and enjoyable. Student feedback indicated that the most valuable components of the project were independent learning and working “hands on”, while the least enjoyable included a sense of disorganisation and uncertainty that accompanied independence. The paper also reflects on the more general lessons drawn from the PBL project, focusing on issues such as assessment, staffing, resources and departmental culture.

What is the Use of Fieldwork? Conceptions of Students and Staff in Geography and Geology

This paper explores conceptions of the purpose of fieldwork held by undergraduates and academic staff in the disciplines of geography and geology. Phenomenographic analysis of written data reveals six qualitatively distinct conceptions broadly classified as ‘fragmented’ and ‘cohesive’. While considerable commonality in conceptions exists across subjects and stages of study, variations appear to reflect underlying diversity in the aims and delivery of undergraduate fieldwork, and in the undergraduate populations themselves. In particular, the identification of apparent ‘mismatches’ between the conceptions held by students and academic staff has important implications for the design and delivery of undergraduate geography and geology fieldwork.

Using Extension Fieldwork to Incorporate Experiential Learning into University Coursework

This article presents a strategy for incorporating experiential learning into university coursework through the use of Extension fieldwork projects. In this case, undergraduate agribusiness management students construct business plans for primary agricultural industries and proposed new industries, such as food processing. Results of the study suggest that fieldwork projects enhance student learning and provide a valuable "real world" application of their classroom coursework. Undergraduate fieldwork projects should have a clear set of steps/goals, and instructors may need to help students identify an industry and appropriate industry contacts, as well as specify region of interest and number of contact hours required.

The mirror in motion: redefining reflective practice in an undergraduate fieldwork seminar

In Education, Schon’s (1987) model of the reflective practitioner has been enriched by the call for a more contextual approach. Yet even the revised conception of the reflective practitioner needs renewal in order to meet the persistent demands of teaching and of learning to teach in diverse, difficult settings. Using postmodern identity theory, this paper examines two illustrative cases of student reflection in a field work seminar led by the author in order to analyse the ways in which students and instructor carried out reflective practice from a range of subject positions in response to complex, sometimes chaotic contexts. This analysis invites the construction of more dynamic metaphors (Cook‐Sather, 2003b) for reflective practice. While such metaphors are necessarily only partially successful in representing the dynamic, unfinished processes of and under reflection, they are better suited to the challenging contexts of teaching.

Linking Teaching and Research in an Undergraduate Fieldwork Module: a case study

This article provides an example of linking teaching and research within an undergraduate fieldwork module. It highlights student perceptions of the learning and assessment experience and it examines quantitatively the extent to which students were successful in deep learning. Empirical results showed that students generally rose to the challenge of predictive-analytical learning to produce grades congruent with their Level 2 results. Whilst some students began to question the acquisition of knowledge and came to realise its provisional nature, others met with considerable difficulty in achieving deeper understanding through research-based, problem-solving activity. Learning and assessing through active student involvement in the research process at Level 2 seems to be an appropriate method of preparing students for their independent dissertation at Level 3.

Using Digital Mapping Tools and 3-D Visualisation to Improve Undergraduate Fieldwork

Digital mapping methods for capturing and visualising field data are increasingly used in industry and provide alternatives to the traditional mapping techniques that students learn in their academic courses. Over the past two years, a range of digital mapping and 3-D visualisation methods have been introduced into the teaching programme in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Durham and are used in preparation for field classes, during fieldwork and in post-field class activities. The introduction of digital mapping into fieldwork classes provides the opportunity to use research results to enhance student learning and understanding of the natural environment, encourage more rigorous and quantitative data collection and increase student awareness of industry practice. We recommend this approach as one way to achieve stronger links between teaching and research in Earth Science departments.

Linking teaching and research in the undergraduate fieldwork training programme at the University of Adelaide

Fieldwork is recognised as a significant medium through which to link research and teaching in the geosciences. In this short paper we provide three case studies demonstrating how these links are applied in our undergraduate curriculum. Level 1 geoscience students are introduced to geology research, fieldwork and mapping in complex terrains in an exercise involving grid sketching of small areas of polydeformation and metamorphism. A second study examines the integration of postgraduate research topics and areas with exploration geophysics techniques training in the Adelaide Hills. Finally, the links between consultancy, research and teaching are shown in a programme of exploration drilling for gold in an emerging mineral field in remote South Australia.

Developing Fieldwork in Social and Cultural Geography: Illustrations from a residential field class in Los Angeles and Las Vegas

A recent critique of the politics of fieldwork has raised questions concerning traditional approaches to fieldwork and the value of field-based learning to a more radical social and cultural geography. At the same time, a review of the literature on undergraduate fieldwork reveals few examples of innovations in fieldwork practice by those teaching in this area of the discipline. Here, it is argued that fieldwork in fact continues to represent one of the most appropriate forms by which student understanding of a number of the key concerns of social and cultural geography may be developed but that this development is best encouraged by working with a new approach to fieldwork emerging not out of the educational literature but the literature on fieldwork in the research process. The argument is illustrated by means of an account of a specialist residential field class for social and cultural geography undergraduates to Los Angeles and Las Vegas .

Gender differences in attitudes to undergraduate fieldwork

Summary Although there has been some research examining the implications of changes in funding in higher education for undergraduate fieldwork, there has been little work looking at the effects that a more diverse student body has upon activities of this nature. This study aims to begin to redress this by researching the attitudes of students to fieldwork, and specifically by highlighting their gender differences.