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).