Conceptions of Tornado Wind Speed and Land Surface Interactions Among Undergraduate Students in Nebraska

ABSTRACT

To ascertain novice conceptions of tornado wind speed and the influence of surface characteristics on tornado occurrence, 613 undergraduate students enrolled in introductory science courses at a large state university in Nebraska were surveyed. Our findings show that students lack understanding of the fundamental concepts that (1) tornadoes are primarily atmospheric phenomena, and (2) they are only weakly influenced by the underlying land surface. A common alternate conception was that land surface features offer protection from tornadoes. For example, many students thought that (1) tornadoes generally cannot occur over snow cover or in mountainous terrain, (2) locally lower areas and hills provide protection from tornadoes, and (3) cities are not as susceptible to tornadoes as surrounding areas. Students also lacked an accurate conception of the wind speed in strong tornadoes.

Key words::

• meteorology
• alternate conceptions
• misconceptions
• tornado
• severe weather
• concept inventory
• undergraduate student
• atmospheric science

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln for partial financial support for this study. Sabrina Jauernic is acknowledged for providing inter-rater reliability comparisons and for manuscript edits. Andrew Gabel is acknowledged for help with survey administration and coding rubric refinement. We thank the faculty who allowed survey administration in their courses, and the students who were willing to participate. Helpful discussions about the study were held with Cynthia Van Den Broeke.