Geology: A science, a teacher, or a course?: How students construct the image of geological disciplines and that of their teachers

The repertory grid technique, developed out of personal construct psychology (Kelly, 1955), has been used to elicit information about students' outlook on some geosciences and relevant instructors. Constructs were elicited from a sample of six undergraduate students. Six subject areas of geosciences (geography, geology, stratigraphy, mineralogy, palaeontology, petrology) constituted the range of convenience of the grid elements. Examples are given of students' representations of the geosciences and their teachers as well as the cluster analysis of the grid elements in terms of geological disciplines and relevant instructors. This study demonstrates that this technique is useful to understand better the nature and range of students' ideas about the image of geosciences and the quality of teaching.