Date of Award

12-2025

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Science Education

First Advisor

Heather Petcovic, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Peggy McNeal, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

Betty Adams, Ph.D.

Abstract

Hydrogeology is a sub-discipline of geoscience that deals with the occurrence and movement of water and possible contaminants within the subsurface. Understanding basic principles of hydrogeology is important for applying practical solutions to hydrogeology problems. Hydrogeology is a visuospatial discipline in which spatial thinking skills play a significant role. To assess the hydrogeology knowledge of students, a valid and reliable assessment instrument with spatial components is required.

This research was conducted as a series of quantitative studies with three goals: (1) to develop the Hydrogeology Concept Inventory (HCI), a valid and reliable measure of upper-level undergraduate students’ hydrogeology knowledge, (2) to better understand how spatial thinking skills interact with knowledge in driving performance on this measure, and (3) to use this measure to identify potential misconceptions/misunderstandings among this upper-level student population.

Chapter Two investigates the role of spatial thinking skills and experience in performance on spatial and non-spatial items from an early version of the HCI, called the hydrogeology knowledge test (HKT). Students and professional hydrogeologists (N=72) completed two spatial thinking tests relevant to hydrogeology, a domain and experience questionnaire, and the HKT. A positive correlation was found between spatial thinking skills and performance on spatial and non-spatial items, and between experience and performance on spatial and non-spatial items; however, no correlation was found between spatial thinking skills and experience. In a regression model, experience predicted 20.3% of the variance in performance on spatial items and 28% of the variance in performance on non-spatial items, while spatial thinking skills predicted 11.2% of the variance in performance on spatial items and 5.4% of the variance in performance on nonspatial items. An interaction effect was found such that spatial thinking skills gave added advantage to the performance of an individual on spatial and non-spatial HKT items at moderate to high levels of experience.

Chapter Three focuses on the development and validation of the HCI. The development used an iterative approach involving expert review and student interviews. To establish the validity and reliability, hydrogeology instructors (N=19) completed a survey, and introductory hydrogeology students (N=142) completed the HCI. Results from the instructors’ survey suggest that the key concepts of the HCI are important in hydrogeology course and the HCI items measure the key concepts well. Item analysis of the students’ responses guided by Classical Test theory and Item Response Theory suggests that the HCI includes items with varying range of difficulties, distinguishes between low and high performing students, and is not gender-biased.

Chapter Four uses data from the student population as in Chapter 3, to identify potential student misconceptions/misunderstandings and explore the performance of students on spatial and non-spatial items from the HCI. The findings suggest that upper-level introductory hydrogeology students have some potential misconceptions/misunderstandings that align with documented misconceptions in the literature. Additionally, the upper-level introductory hydrogeology students tend to perform better on spatial items than non-spatial items from the HCI.

Together, these studies establish the role of spatial thinking skills in performance on an introductory hydrogeology test. A validated HCI was developed that can be used to assess knowledge with spatial components and identify potential misconceptions/misunderstandings.

Access Setting

Dissertation-Open Access

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