Results
117 respondents submitted a survey, and represented at least 70
different institutions, including doctoral universities (51; 44.35%),
master’s colleges or universities (29; 25.22%), baccalaureate colleges
(24; 20.87%), baccalaureate/associate’s colleges (3; 2.61%), and
associate’s colleges (8; 6.96%) that were both public (92; 80%) and
private (23; 20%). Respondents were largely tenure-track or tenured
faculty (93; 80.87%), but included lecturers or adjunct faculty (11;
9.57%), research faculty (4, 3.48%), graduate students (4; 3.48%),
post-doctoral associates (1; 0.87%), administrators (1; 0.87%), and
instructional support or faculty development staff (1; 0.87%).
Respondents reported primarily teaching courses in a variety of
disciplines in field settings, categorized post-hoc (see Supporting
Information for complete list) as earth sciences (14; 13.1%), ecology,
wildlife biology, and vertebrate zoology (52; 48.6%), fisheries,
oceanography and marine biology (9; 8.4%), forestry, botany, and soil
science (20; 18.7%), general biology (2; 1.9%), invertebrate zoology
(2; 1.9%), outdoor education (4; 3.7%), and environmental science (4;
3.7%). Assessed learning outcomes of these courses were not dependent
on field components (1; 0.9%), minimally dependent on field components
(32; 27.6%), largely dependent on field components (74; 63.8%), or
wholly dependent on field components (9; 7.76%). Students in these
courses were composed of first-year (21; 18.10%), second-year (43;
37.1%), third-year (60; 51.7%), fourth-year and beyond (73; 62.9%),
or graduate students (21; 18.1%). The types of field components in
respondents’ courses included short field trips (90; 77.6%), day-long
field trips (42; 36.2%), overnight trips of less than three nights (27;
23.3%), overnight trips of three of more nights (15; 12.9%), courses
largely or completely taught in the field or at a field station (24;
20.7%), and included supervised field work conducted during field trips
(48; 41.38%) as well as independent field work conducted by students on
their own time (45; 38.79%).
The majority of respondents (93; 79.5%) reported instructing courses
with field components for which the mode of instruction was impacted by
the COVID-19 pandemic during spring 2020, and many respondents (53;
45.3%) anticipated impacts to courses with field components in summer
or fall 2020. Three respondents (2.56%) were already teaching remote
courses in spring 2020 with field components before the onset of the
pandemic, and five respondents (4.27%) were already planning to
remotely teach a course with field components in summer 2020. Six
respondents (5.13%) either instruct, have instructed, or develop
instructional materials for courses with field components but were not
currently teaching in spring, summer, or fall 2020. In response to the
COVID-19 pandemic, some (33; 29.0%) respondents reported removing or
planning to remove and many (53; 46.5%) reported reducing or planning
to reduce field learning outcomes. Most respondents (65; 57.0%)
reported switching from teaching field learning outcomes in the field to
teaching them remotely, and some (37; 32.5%) reported switching from
teaching field learning outcomes in a typical field setting to teaching
them remotely, but still in the field. One respondent (0.88%) reported
making no changes because they were already teaching remotely.
Respondents reported typically teaching a diversity of field learning
outcomes (Figure 1A) and a variety of field teaching techniques (Figure
1B), and extensive reductions or removal of field learning outcomes in
response to modality shift (Figure 1A). Respondents reported using or
planning to use a variety of remote teaching activities, on an ordinal
4-category response item that ranged from “not at all” to
“extensively” (Figure 2). Respondents reported variation in the
effectiveness (Figure 3A) and equity (Figure 3B) of alternative remote
substitute activities based on their responses to 5-point Likert-scale
response items. Respondents used a tabular survey question (see
Supporting Information) to map face-to-face field activities to their
substituted remote learning activities (Figure 4). I categorized,
post-hoc, free-response answers provided to two questions that asked
respondents to identify barriers to equity in teaching field topics
face-to-face and in remote modalities (Table 1). Thirty-seven
respondents provided examples of what they considered successful remote
adaptations of field teaching in response to a free-response question,
which I expanded and merged into three general approaches to remote
teaching of field topics, organized by learning outcome type (Table 2).