PBS-DIRT Don`t Hurt: How Place-Based Soil Data Interpretation and Research in Texas Can Support Learning and Motivation for Diverse Learners

PBS-DIRT DON`T HURT: HOW PLACE-BASED SOIL DATA INTERPRETATION AND RESEARCH IN TEXAS CAN SUPPORT LEARNING AND MOTIVATION FOR DIVERSE LEARNERS

Sponsoring Institution

National Institute of Food and Agriculture

Project Status

ACTIVE

Funding Source

OTHER GRANTS

Reporting Frequency

Annual

Accession No.

1032913

Grant No.

2024-77040-43179

Cumulative Award Amt.

$395,995.00

Proposal No.

2024-03604

Multistate No.

(N/A)

Project Start Date

Sep 1, 2024

Project End Date

Aug 31, 2028

Grant Year

2024

Program Code

[NJ]- Hispanic Serving Institutions Education Grants Program

Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO
1 UTSA CIRCLE
SAN ANTONIO,TX 78249

Performing Department
(N/A)

Non Technical Summary
?Emphasizing relevant and meaningful applications of science can improve diverse undergraduate students' motivation and learning of FANH (food, agriculture, natural resources, and human sciences). This project aims to build on prior research by developing and evaluating an interdisciplinary, place-based, online learning module: PBS-DIRT (Place Based Soil Data Interpretation and Research in Texas). The purpose of PBS-DIRT is to engage undergraduate students with relevant applications of data science and microbiology to improve their motivation and learning. Namely, we will conduct a multi-stage study where we will (1) develop a PBS-DIRT learning module focused on engaging students in collecting and analyzing authentic soil data from the San Antonio area, (2) revise the module and validate survey measures over several iterations of one-on-one interviews with students as they engage with the learning materials, (3) train faculty to implement the curriculum in microbiology courses at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and (4) implement and evaluate the module in full classroom settings using a quasi-experimental study design. Namely, we intend to use a pretest, posttest, comparison group study design to assess whether the PBS-DIRT module improves student microbiology knowledge, data visualization literacy skills, engagement, interest, and value in FANH compared to a control group. Findings will contribute to research on interdisciplinary STEM education by testing relationships between learning and motivation hypothesized by prominent learning theories, exploring the extent to which emphasizing data literacy can support microbiology learning, and will result in an intervention designed to support interdisciplinary STEM education and persistence for Latiné students that can be easily shared with STEM instructors in Texas and with the general public.

Animal Health Component

100%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

Applied

100%

Developmental

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
903	0110	3020	90%
102	4010	1100	10%

Knowledge Area
102 - Soil, Plant, Water, Nutrient Relationships; 903 - Communication, Education, and Information Delivery;

Subject Of Investigation
0110 - Soil; 4010 - Bacteria;

Field Of Science
3020 - Education; 1100 - Bacteriology;

Keywords

conceptual change

data literacy

learning technology

microbiology education

Goals / Objectives
GOALS / OBJECTIVESThecentral goal of this project is to create learning environments that leverage underrepresented students' strengths to enhance their data science and food, agriculture, natural resources and human sciences (FANH) learning and motivation. For this NIFA HSI submission, we propose to create a system of opportunities for diverse groups of undergraduate students to collect and analyze relevant place-based soil data using curriculum that we call PBS-DIRT (Place-Based Soil Data Interpretation & Research in Texas). Namely, we intend to (OBJECTIVE 1) create authentic learning experiences that support undergraduate students in: collecting soil-data from their "own backyard," sharing their data on a national collaborative database (the Tiny Earth Initiative), and analyze the data to identify new antibiotic structures and address personally relevant research questions; (OBJECTIVE 2) conduct formative and comparative studies of these learning experiences to investigate and improve their effectiveness for student learning and academic motivation; and (OBJECTIVE 3) support microbiology faculty at UTSA as they integrate these place-based soil data projects into their curriculum and assess the impacts on data literacy, FANH learning, persistence, and engagement. Generally speaking, we argue that engaging students with personally relevant, place-based data experiences can support their motivation, engagement, interest, value and learning.RESEARCH QUESTIONSMoreover, this project seeks to pursue these objectivesto address the following research questions:Research Question 1 (RQ1). How can a learning intervention be developed to leverage Latiné undergraduate microbiology students' sense of place for the learning of soil microbiology and data visualization literacy skills?Research Question 2 (RQ2). To what extent will such an intervention support students' microbiology knowledge, data visualization literacy skills, engagement, interest, and value in FANH compared with a control group?

Project Methods
METHODS EFFORTSPhase 1: Conceptualization of the Intervention Content. During Phase 1, the PDs will work together to develop the intervention prototype. The module will be designed to engage undergraduate students enrolled in a microbiology course (MMI 3722) in generating their own research questions and addressing them by collecting and exploring authentic place-based soil data from the San Antonio area. The module will introduce students to relevant problems related to the antibiotic crisis, prompt them to generate personally relevant research questions, provide a short tutorial on data visualization tools, and immerse students in soil data exploration as they respond to questions that guide them through soil microbiology content. Initial efforts to revise our existing pilot design will be directed at (a) creating more interactive data-analysis elements into the module (e.g., by integrating Shiny Applications that enable students to run data analyses within the module environment), (b) centering student inquiry by prompting them to generate research questions that might be addressed using the embedded data analysis apps, and (c) creating course materials that facilitate routines around the student sourcing of place-based soil data and antibiotic discovery (e.g., we will create course materials/videos/handouts that facilitate students' collection of local soils, obtain genomic/metabolomic analysis, upload data to the global database, and analyze the data to discover new antibiotic structures). This will include regularly discussing the materials with the team (PDs, research assistants, and participating faculty) for review and revision.Furthermore, during this phase, two UTSA microbiology faculty will be incentivized to complete a five-day virtual Tiny Earth Partner Instructors (TEPI) training (often offered in January) to introduce faculty to the TinyEarth curricular materials and integrate the curriculum into their syllabus for the forthcoming school year.Phase 2: Intervention Development & Faculty Training (Formative Studies). To answer our first research question, we will use a design-based research (DBR) approach to guide the re-development and revision of an interactive module focused on the use of data visualizations to explore place-based soil data. As is characteristic of DBR, the re-design, implementation, and revisions of the intervention will occur over several iterations (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012; Hoadley & Campos, 2022) and will result in an open-source module geared for promoting place-based learning among underrepresented students in microbiology, offer a microcredential, and can be easily shared with practitioners and the general public online.Over the course of three design iterations, we will conduct 20-30 recorded cognitive interviews (Desimone & Le Floch; 2004) via Zoom with a convenience sample of undergraduate UTSA students participating in microbiology courses taught by Dr. Shields-Menard (Co-PD) in Summer 2025. Interviews will be conducted virtually outside of the scheduled course meeting time and will concentrate on eliciting student feedback to guide the revision of the module and pre-test, post-test survey instruments. Revisions will concentrate on adapting survey instruments so items are interpreted as intended, revising the module to be appealing and engaging for UTSA students as to build from their interests and values, elicit a sense-of place, improve ease of data analyses, and incorporating visualizations that reveal relevant insights about the soil data. The finalized intervention and survey instruments will be used in Phase 3.During Phase 2, participating instructors will also meet with the PDs for a 1-2 hour faculty development summarizing theory and implementation procedures of the PBS-DIRT project in preparation for Phase 3. Any new faculty will additionally complete the TEPI training.Phase 3: Testing the Efficacy of the Intervention for Improving Student Outcomes (Comparative Studies). To answer the second research question, each semester we will recruit N = 100-200 students over the course of five semesters (N = 500-1000 students total). The sample size exceeds a rounded estimate from an a priori power analysis using G*Power which found the sample size required to detect an effect size of 0.15 for an F test with five predictors, power of .95, and alpha level of .05 (Erdfelder et al., 1996). Our goal is to recruitapproximately 66% of the student sample from two undergraduate microbiology courses (treatment group) and the remainder of the sample from a third course (comparison group). All participants will first complete a pretest questionnaire that measures their microbiology and data visualization literacy knowledge (researcher created; validated in Phase 2), STEM interest and task value (Hulleman et al., 2010), and emotional and cognitive engagement (Reeve, 2013). Cited measures have shown to be reliable with undergraduate students in prior studies, the 10 item microbiology measure we created was found in the pilot study to be reliable at pretest and posttest (α = .62, .72 respectively), and the Data-Literacy measure will be developed in Phase 1 and piloted with UTSA undergraduate students and validated in cognitive interviews during Phase 2.After the pretest, learners will complete the PBS-DIRT module (treatment group) or a comparative "business as usual" lesson (comparison group). Participants will then complete an identical post-test of microbiology knowledge, data literacy, STEM interest, emotional and cognitive engagement, task value, and a demographics questionnaire.EVALUATIONDevelopment of the PBS-DIRT Module (RQ1). Upon each iteration of pilot interviews, Zoom recordings will be transcribed and open-coded for varying dimensions of student thinking (Corbin & Strauss, 2014; Saldaña, 2021) with special attention to examining student engagement and learning around soil microbiology and data literacy. Informed by these analyses, various aspects of the module will be revised to: build from students' personal interests, sense of place, improve interpretability, accessibility, usability, and effectiveness before undergoing subsequent iterations of interviews, and ultimately used in Phase 3. Further, this phase will provide cognitive interview data on our survey items, and will provide evidence on whether students interpret the items as intended, and indicate potential revisions to improve their validity.Effects of the GenAI Module (RQ2). To assess the effects of the module on microbiology knowledge, data visualization literacy skills, engagement, interest, and value in STEM (RQ2), we will use multiple regression analyses with robust standard errors using separate models for knowledge, engagement, interest, and value. Main predictors will be the treatment condition and pre-test scores when applicable. We will also include cohort fixed effects to account for cohort-level differences. We predict that the PBS-DIRT modules engaging students in place-based data exploration will significantly improve learning and motivation outcomes compared to the control groups. These predictions are based on theory that novel information can lead to conceptual change when comprehensible, compelling, and engaging (Lombardi et al., 2016). Additionally, we will conduct exploratory path analyses to test whether there are indirect effects of the intervention on microbiology and data visualization knowledge outcomes as mediated by motivational processes and mechanisms (Hulleman et al., 2021).External Evaluation.We have also enlisted the support of the Urban Education Institute (UEI) directed by Dr. Sharon Nichols, an organization that conducts program evaluation for researchers within UTSA and throughout the local community. She will convene a panel of experts to will meet four times to assess the efficacy of Phases 2 and 3 of ourproject in reaching stated objectives.

Progress 09/01/24 to 08/31/25

Outputs
Target Audience:This reporting period, our target audience is undergraduate students at the University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA) who are enrolled in Microbiology or Biology courses and faculty who work with these students. Namely, in this phase we are in the process of redeveloping TinyEarth place-based data dashboards for this group of students, while simultaneously continuing to implement our prototype module each semester and issuing microcredentials upon completion.We are targeting these groups to enhance their data-savviness, motivation, interest, learning, andinterest infood, agriculture, natural resources, and human sciences (FANH) content and carreers. We are also working with partnering faculty instructors to inform them of our project goals, approach to place-based science education, and prepare them toimplement our curricular innovations in their classrooms in the future. Efforts thus far include (a) continued implementation of our prototype module in classroom instruction with approximately 100 undergraduate students per semester, and (b) redevelopment of the module. Regarding continued implementation, we have two partner-instructors who have integrated our PBS-DIRT (Place-Based Soil Data Interpretation and Research in Texas) module into their microbiology lab sections; we are also actively recruiting new partner instructors, with a total of four Microbiology and Biology faculty committed to implementing PBS-DIRTmoving forward. Regarding the redevelopment of the module, we have redesigned the prototype as to integratesoil data collected by former cohorts of students at UTSA andcreated a user-friendly data-analysis dashboard that allows students to address questions of their own design using place-based soil data. These efforts are focused on supporting students' data-saviness,motivation, interest, learning, and interest in food, agriculture, natural resources, and human sciences (FANH) content and careers. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As noted in regards to Objective 3, we are in the process ofbuilding a network of faculty partners, preparing them with training to implementTinyEarth curriculum (through TEPI), and supporting them inintegrating our module into their curricula in upcoming semesters. The materials we are using to recruit partner teachers (e.g., slideshows), we also plan to further develop over time into a full faculty development workshop materials. The goal will be, in the final year of the project, to offer a full faculty development more widely to faculty at UTSA, in the immediate South and Central Texas reigon, and beyond. The development will share an overview of motivational and learning principles driving our work, an introduction to our finalized module, evidence of its effectiveness, and resources for implementing it in their classrooms. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Our team has been thus far been invited to speak at six events, either at UTSA or at national and international conferencesto share highlights from our project, initial research findings, and to call attention to the importance ofpromoting data-saviness for FANH learning broadly. Audiences so far have largely been faculty in STEM fields and educationresearchers in disciplines of educational psychology and STEM education. Specifically, we have featured our work at the American Educational Research Association (AERA), American Psychological Association (APA), the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME-NA),ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, and through UTSA through the Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars (ADTS).We were also notified recently that a proposal demonstrating our project and reporting our findings was accepted for presentation atAmerican Society for Microbiology (ASM), Conference for Undergraduate Educators (CUE), though at this time we have not been notified about the the presentation format. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period, we will focus much of our efforts on conducting a design-based research study involvingrecruiting and interviewing students to provide formative feedback to guide the design of our module and survey measures. Feedback from students will guide design revisionsand incorporation of meaningful place-based data exploration platform into the module(OBJ 1). We will also document our design process, use qualitative evidence to assess the effectiveness of the new design elements of the intervention for promoting student learning and motivaton (OBJ 2), and use qualitative findings to inform research and practice related to interdisciplinary FANH education (RQ1). We also plan to onboard two new faculty members (fourin total),who have agreed to integrate our module into their syllabus and implement it in their classroom (OBJ 3)-prior to the scaled up quasi-experimental study (which begins period 3).

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? PROJECT TEAM REPORT This project aims to develop and evaluatean interdisciplinary, place-based, online learning module--PBS-DIRT (Place Based Soil Data Interpretation and Research in Texas)--that engages diverse groups of undergraduate students with relevant applications of data science and microbiology to improve motivation and learning--and support faculty in integrating the module in their curriculum.During this reporting period, we made significant progress toward each of the project's three objectivesand the first of our two research questions: Objective 1: Creating authentic learning experiences using PBS-DIRT. This reporting period, we continued to (a) implement our PBS-DIRT prototype module in microbiology lab sections to supplementstudents' TinyEarth lab experiences (where theycollect and analyzing microbes in soil to identify new antibiotic structures) while (b) concurrently redeveloping the module design. Module implementation reached 180 new students this period, 298 total. Currently, themodule supplements TinyEarth with authentic soil data analysis, allowing students to pose and address research questions about antibiotic content in soil across the U.S. using place-baseddata gathered from the TinyEarth repositoryand represented on a U.S. map. We have also been consistently collecting pre-and post-module survey data (see next section for details). We have redesigned the prototype module to incorporate embedded datacollected locally by former cohorts of UTSA students. The revamped data-dashboard includes a more interactive data analysis interface and a stronger emphasison place-based elements of the data, with the intention of deepening the sense of student ownership and engagement. This design also aligns with our intention to leverage students' sense of place as an educational asset, in line with Research Question 1. Though not yet implemented, we plan to conduct formative research studies with smaller samples ofstudents prior to the next reporting period. Objective 2: Conducting formative and comparative studies of the learning experience. As with Objective 1, accomplishments related to Objective 2 can be broken into two components: (a) findings related to the impact of our prototype moduleand (b) accomplishments related to the redevelopment of this module. As noted, we collected pret/post data using the prototype to examine gains in students' microbiology knowledge, data visualization literacy, and motivational outcomes, including interest and perceived value in FANH topics and careers. Preliminary qualitative and quantitative evidence demonstrate staistically significant gains in students' microbiology knowledge, perceptions of data-science relevance for soil-microbiology, andcomplexity of scientific language usage. Reports of these preliminary findings have been published in the International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education(Thacker et al., 2025) and forthcomingproceedings of the forty-seventh annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Thacker et al., in press). This period, we redeveloped the module and survey instruments used in our study. As noted, we revamped the PBS-DIRT module to involve more accessible, interactive, and place-based soil data analysis expereinces.We have also revised the collection of survey instruments that we will employ in this study. Namely, our survey materials include reliable measures of students microbiology knowledge (Thacker et al., 2025), data literacy (Kim, Hong, Evans, 2024),motivation and engagement (Greene, 2015; Hulleman et al., 2010;Kosovich et al., 2015; Pekrun et al., 2017). We also developed a survey for students to report findings related to their soil data, as to streamline the process of incorporating their soil data into our data dashboards.The revised module and survey items will be piloted nextyearwhen we will be conducting qualitative, "think aloud"interviews with UTSA undergraduate students, where we will incorporate student feedback into our redesign of the modules andassessment items, and address RQ1. Objective 3: Supporting UTSA faculty integration of PBS-DIRT. We have built a growing network of faculty partners. Since beginning this project, wehave grown from one to four partner instructors, all who haveat this time completed the TinyEarth TEPI training--two who are instructors of Microbiology (Dr. Sara Shields Menard, Dr. Hamid Badali)and two in Biology (Dr. Donna Degen, Dr. Mariah Hopkins). These faculty havemet with the project team to learn about our project goals and approach, and have committed to integrating our moduleinto their curricula in the upcoming semesters. Further, these faculty are actively involved in co-developing the curriculum and offering feedback to refine both instructional materials and technical infrastructure (e.g., the data dashboard). I should also note that, torecruitthese partner teachers, our team hascreated recruitment materials, including a slideshow presentationand presentation script. These recruitment materials are essentially initial drafts ofmaterials we will use for faculty development workshops. In the final year of the project, we will offer a full faculty development more widely, with an overview of motivational and learning principles driving our work, an introduction to our finalized module, evidence of its effectiveness, andresources for implementing it in their classrooms. What we have created for partner instructors thus far accomplishes these same goals, but on a smaller scale. Taken together, these accomplishments show early evidence that PBS-DIRT can be a viable strategy for promoting learning and motivation in FANH disciplines among Latiné and other underrepresented students. Our team continues to refine the intervention based on iterative feedback from students and instructors, while expanding our reach and strengthening the infrastructure needed for long-term impact. REPORT FROM EXTERNAL EVALUATOR: THE URBAN EDUCAITON INSTUTUTE For the purpose of this evaluation, the team at Urban Education Institute consisting of Dr. Sharon Nichols (Director), and Dr. Han Bum Lee (Associate Director) evaluated the most recent set of materials associated with the NIFA project "PBS-DIRT don't hurt: How place-based soil data interpretation and research in Texas can support learning and motivation for diverse learners" including (a) the progress report, (b) recruitment materials, (c) survey materials, and (d) associated publications. We evaluate the progress of the project based on activities associated with the three primary objectives as described in the progress report. Objective 1 isON TRACKas demonstrated by growing numbers of students participating in the implementation and the incorporation of "embedded data collected locally by former cohorts of UTSA students" used to revamp and redesign the data-dashboard that will further facilitate this objective. Objective 2 isON TRACKwith activities that have been developed and implemented in alignment with this objective. Here, Dr. Thacker and his team have collected a wide range of data (quantitative and qualitative evidence) demonstrating the impact of the learning module in its earlier iteration and have reported on these results in academic outlets. Objective 3 isON TRACKwith the research team already successful in expanding its reach to a higher number of UTSA faculty who have helped to construct and ultimately adopted the curriculum. As a bonus, this work has also been leveraged to design recruitment materials that can be shared more broadly as the research team works to scale up the project. We also note the rigor of the measures adopted for the project, all of which are in alignment with overarching goals of the project. This project is on track, well aligned, rigorous in its design and execution, and already highly successful in progress towards its goals.

Publications

Type: Peer Reviewed Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2025 Citation: Thacker, I., Shroeder, R., Shields-Menard, S., & Goforth, N.* (2025). Dirt Dont Hurt: How relevant soil data can support learning and motivation at a Hispanic Serving Institution. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 23, 803826.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2025 Citation: Thacker, I., Schroeder, R., Shields-Menard, S. (April, 2025). Growth of the Soil: How Personally Relevant Soil Data Can Support Learning and Motivation for Underrepresented Students. Paper session presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Denver, CO.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2025 Citation: Thacker, I., Schroeder, R., Shields-Menard, S., & Goforth, N.* (2024). Dirt Dont Hurt: How Relevant Soil Data Can Support Learning and Motivation for Diverse Learners. Poster presented to the American Psychological Association (APA), Seattle, WA.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2025 Citation: Schroeder, R., Niu, J., Malshe, A., Hum, S., Flemming S., Thacker, I. (March, 2024) Enabling Widespread Engagement in DS and AI: The Generation AI Curriculum Initiative for Community Colleges. Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. (Vol 2, p. 1938). Portland, OR. https://doi.org/10.1145/3626253.3635343
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Thacker, I., Schroeder, R., & Shields-Menard, S. (2024). Dirt Dont Hurt: How Relevant Soil Data Can Support Learning and Motivation at a Hispanic Serving Institution. Proceedings of the forty-sixth annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (pp. 14671472). Cleveland, OH. https://doi.org/10.51272/pmena.46.2024