Scope of this Paper
For the purposes of this paper, we borrow from the work of Fleischner et al., (2017) and O’Connell et al, (submitted) to define what we are considering to be a UFE. UFEs are designed explicitly with student learning in mind and occur in a field setting. We are not limiting our discussion of UFEs to field biology, geoscience, or natural history courses, as we are aware of the wide-range of disciplines with UFEs, and aim to be inclusive of these experiences.
The authors of this paper are members and founders of the Undergraduate Field Experiences Research Network (UFERN; www.ufern.net), a NSF-funded Research Coordination Network focused on fostering effective UFEs. UFERN brings together diverse perspectives and expertise to examine the potentially distinctive learning and personal growth that happens for students when they engage in UFEs across the range of disciplines and formats. During a UFERN meeting (2019), it became apparent that undergraduate field educators from across disciplines were frequently requesting help in how to collect empirical evidence about complex student outcomes from UFEs (O’Connell et al. 2020). The work presented here emerged from conversations at that UFERN meeting and is a collaboration between STEM education researchers, social scientists, and undergraduate field educators from multiple disciplines, to directly address calls for guidance on assessing UFEs.