the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 19 Feb 2025
Seeds of transformative learning and its pedagogical implications on a conference-based university course for environmental and geosciences
Abstract. Expertise in Arctic climate change requires not only a deep knowledge of the physical processes but also an awareness and understanding of the region’s complex socio-economic dynamics. In this study, we explore students’ learning experience on a university course where students of environmental and geosciences attend the Arctic Circle Assembly conference, introducing them to a wide range of stakeholders and viewpoints from geopolitics to Indigenous perspectives. With a qualitative inquiry, we study the students' sense of belonging and transformativeness of the learning process, and how those might influence the development of the students’ professional identity. Interviews in the event, written reflections of the students and post-course in-depth interviews reveal elements of the transformative learning process, in which the students’ sense of belonging played a role: lack of belonging to the expert community induced dilemmas and belonging to the student group enabled joined reflection. However, some dilemmas do not seem to lead into transformation. Therefore, as pedagogical implications of our findings, we highlight the importance of facilitation of critical reflection and discourse of the learner’s values and beliefs. Facilitation should consider students’ prior learning and background and include building of trust and belonging in the learning community, enabling the challenging reflections. We suggest that flexible pedagogies and approaches of transformative climate change education have potential to mould students’ professional identity and widen their perspectives on what it means to be a responsible scientist or expert in the Arctic context.
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Status: open (until 28 Jul 2025)
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-4097', Mathieu Casado, 08 Apr 2025
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In this manuscript by Siponen et al, the authors analyse interviews with students before and after the Arctic Circle course, a master-level conference-based course, to evaluate what knowledge the students gain, through what is referred as transformative learning. The authors identify sense of belonging as a major aspect of the learning process, influencing the capacity of retention, and overall how successful the learning is going to be. As such, the Arctic Circle conference context provide an immersion into a very unfamiliar context for the students, which is presumably the incentive behind the choice of the authors of using this course as a template.
The manuscript is well written, quite comprehensive, and very relevant to the journal. As a climate scientist, I would emphasize that I don't pretend being an expert in transformative learning and focused my review on the link between geoscientists and the greater audience. I would suggest a couple of minor comments, but otherwise would recommend the manuscript for publication.
Minor comments:
- Lines 64 to 67: "It is evident that geoscientists have a role in informing and engaging in climate action, but competencies supporting this role, such as systems thinking, normative thinking or interpersonal skills, are not necessarily widely incorporated into higher education of geosciences (Riuttanen et al. 2021)."
I think the fact that scientists working on climate change have no training in communication their complex results to a wide audience is a very important topic here. The role of scientific organisation, such as the IPCC, as a bridge between scientific community and policy makers and stake holders could be mentioned as a potential bridge. For popular science, scientists are also not alone and many organisations or associations help bridge the knowledge gap.- Lines 81 and forward: There is a 1.1 but no 1.2. This section looks a little bit like a "Methods" section, in the sense that it explains how the study was built.
- Lines 455 to 457: "They saw their future role as Arctic researchers with responsibility over how science should be done: taking people into account, for example by listening to differing voices; being open to various ways of knowing; and assessing their own and surrounding normativities critically."
I wonder if any of the interview targets why they think so few climate change expert actually take these steps currently ? Or society in general.Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4097-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Joula Siponen, 14 Apr 2025
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Dear referee,
Many thanks for the positive and important comments for our manuscript! We are happy to hear that you see the relevance and importance of our work in the context of the journal.
The conference-based course as a learning context is truly rather unique in a sense that it really challenges the students to reflect on their own geoscience expertise, and possibly their professional identity, that is deeply connected to their sense of belonging. Exploring the learning context through the lens of transformative learning allowed us to identify possible dilemmas and the process of their resolution, highlighting the role of facilitation in such a learning context.
Minor comments:
REFEREE COMMENT:
- Lines 64 to 67: "It is evident that geoscientists have a role in informing and engaging in climate action, but competencies supporting this role, such as systems thinking, normative thinking or interpersonal skills, are not necessarily widely incorporated into higher education of geosciences (Riuttanen et al. 2021)."
I think the fact that scientists working on climate change have no training in communication their complex results to a wide audience is a very important topic here. The role of scientific organisation, such as the IPCC, as a bridge between scientific community and policy makers and stake holders could be mentioned as a potential bridge. For popular science, scientists are also not alone and many organisations or associations help bridge the knowledge gap.
REPLY:
Thank you for the comment and highlighting the existing bridges for communication of geoscience to the public. You are right that there are channels already available and people dedicated to science communication within various organisations. It is important to acknowledge those structures.
We will add the following sentence to the mentioned section of the manuscript: ‘Structures, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), hold an important position in supporting communication of geosciences to the public and policy making, and working as a bridge between the science community and stakeholders.’
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REFEREE COMMENT:
- Lines 81 and forward: There is a 1.1 but no 1.2. This section looks a little bit like a "Methods" section, in the sense that it explains how the study was built.
REPLY:
The intention of this section is to describe the course as the setting of our study, and therefore we decided to place it under the introduction. It is true that the graph of the course schedule also includes the steps of the study, referring to methodology. However, we consider it a bridge to the next section.
For clarity, we will remove the numbering from the title of the section.
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REFEREE COMMENT:
- Lines 455 to 457: "They saw their future role as Arctic researchers with responsibility over how science should be done: taking people into account, for example by listening to differing voices; being open to various ways of knowing; and assessing their own and surrounding normativities critically."
I wonder if any of the interview targets why they think so few climate change expert actually take these steps currently? Or society in general.
REPLY:
This is an interesting question! The views of the students on why these steps are rarely taken was not directly discussed in our interviews. However, it would be interesting to further investigate the views and attitudes of geoscience researchers and students towards responsible scientific practice, climate justice and social sustainability.
All the best,
Joula Siponen
On behalf of all co-authors
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4097-AC1
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Joula Siponen, 14 Apr 2025
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-4097', Anonymous Referee #2, 22 Jun 2025
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General comments:
The manuscript addresses a timely and important topic concerning the role of environmental and geoscience students and experts in transformative societal efforts. It draws on qualitative data regarding students’ learning experience that attended the Arctic Circle Assembly conference. There is no doubt that the paper offers valuable new insights and contributes meaningfully to the ongoing discourse in the field. However, the manuscript requires improvement in several areas, particularly in terms of structure, clarity and coherence of content presentation, as well as in the rigor of its methodological approach.
Specific comments:
The Introduction is well-written and provides the necessary information about the topic. In lines 52-53, the emphasis on a transdisciplinary approach is well-founded, however, the manuscript could benefit from clarifying how transdisciplinarity is operationalized in practice.
Paragraph in lines 68-74: Although the authors state what they do in their study, this does not in itself suffice as a rationale for the importance of the study; it is merely procedural. That is, it tells what the authors are doing, but not why it matters. To be a solid rationale, the authors should move beyond description and state the importance of the problem, explain how the study may affect the current situation and the relevant research approaches that are being used at the moment and state the originality and contribution of the study.
I would strongly advise the authors to reword the first research question with greater clarity and to break the second question into two questions as the second research question should not be that broad.
In paragraph 78-80, the information should be more analytical.
Paragraph in lines 109-114 provides key information about the transformative component of the course and as such it should be much more analytical; it should account for how exactly the course was transformative. Therefore, very small sentences should be avoided and a more explanatory way of expression should be adopted.
There are some concerns about the structure of the paper; it would be more suitable to place Section 1.1 (with the right adjustments) within the Methodology section and not before the literature section. I would also advise omitting “Case” from the heading of the section.
In addition, a more suitable heading for section “2 Theoretical framing” would be “Theoretical background”.
The learning outcomes in lines 127-129 ought to be explained more and worded with greater clarity.
In the same section (Theoretical background), it is necessary to improve the coherence and flow between paragraphs. At times, transitions are abrupt, and the logical progression of ideas is unclear. Strengthening the internal linking between paragraphs will help guide the reader through the argument more effectively. Additionally, some key claims would be more convincing if supported by further elaboration or evidence. I also recommend conducting a more extensive literature review and add more sources.
In the Materials and Methods section, given the very low number of participants, it is necessary to explain how thematic saturation was achieved and ensured in the semi-structured interviews before and after the course.
Regarding reflections, although they should be included, it is necessary to explain how they were systematically collected and analyzed (as for a recognized qualitative method).
It is concerning that although the first interviews were conducted in person, the in-depth post-course interviews were conducted in Zoom. As in-person interviews allow for richer non-verbal communication and a more natural conversational flow ensuring the understanding of the topic, Zoom interviews may limit observation or introduce technical distractions, possibly influencing the depth of reflection or emotional expression. This is an important flaw and authors should explain how the mode of communication might have shaped participants' responses.
In addition, in the beginning of the section, it is necessary to state explicitly the type of interviews that were conducted before and after the course and to state the reasons for choosing these methods and most importantly explain how these methods served better the research aim.
There should also be a methodological framing of the approach used to analyze interview data. In addition, it is necessary to explain how coding was done and if a framework was used and how themes were exactly developed.
In the beginning of the Discussion, it is necessary to state concisely whether and how the study managed to answer the research questions. The Discussion could also provide some critique on previous relevant studies and point at how the study challenges or advances the approaches that have been followed until now.
The paper would be further improved if the authors provided a separate Conclusions section where the authors will summarize key conclusions, reiterate the significance of the study, state study limitations and suggest directions for future studies in this research field.
I would also advise the authors to perform language editing to ensure accuracy and clarity and to avoid any typos both in the paper and the Appendices.
After revising the paper, it would be beneficial to revise also the Abstract so that it becomes more engaging and accurate.
Technical Comments:
In the Abstract, in lines 16-17, it would read better to replace “students’ learning experience on a university course” with “students’ learning experience during a university course”.
In the same lines, it would also be better to replace “where students of environmental and geosciences attend” with something a bit clearer such as “where students studying environmental and geosciences attend”
In addition, instead of “With a qualitative inquiry”, it would be perhaps more accurate to stat “Using qualitative methods”.
Line 54: To improve clarity, I would advise to remove sentence “This poses a challenge for geoscience education”.
Line 58: Remove “s” from grasps in “The experts in Arctic climate change must grasps”.
Line 89: Instead of providing the link as citation, perhaps it would be better to provide the name of the institution and a date - if available).
Sentence in lines 100-102 ought to be rephrased as it is somewhat confusing.
The caption for Table 1 should appear above and not below it.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4097-RC2
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