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Lack of quantitative training among early-career ecologists: a survey of the problem and potential solutions

, , , , , , ,
1 Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway
2 Centre for Biological Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom
3 Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
4 Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, USA
5 Biology Department, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada
6 Evolutionary Biodemography Laboratory, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
7 School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
8 Department of Ecology, Lincoln University, Lincoln, Canterbury, New Zealand
9 Département de biologie, chimie et géographie, Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR), Rimouski, Canada
10 Québec Centre for Biodiversity Sciences, McGill University, Montréal, Canada
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.53v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Conservation Biology, Ecology, Environmental Sciences, Science and Medical Education, Statistics
Keywords
education, statistics, mathematics, ecology student, teaching, education, statistics, mathematics, teaching, university curriculum, student
Copyright
© 2013 Barraquand et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Cite this article
Barraquand F, Ezard THG, Joergensen PS, Zimmerman N, Chamberlain SA, Salguero-Gómez R, Curran TJ, Poisot T. 2013. Lack of quantitative training among early-career ecologists: a survey of the problem and potential solutions. PeerJ PrePrints 1:e53v1

Abstract

Proficiency in mathematics and statistics is essential to modern ecological science, yet few studies have assessed the level of quantitative training received by ecologists. To do so, we conducted an online survey. The 937 respondents were mostly early-career scientists that studied biology as undergraduates. We found a clear self-perceived lack of quantitative training: 75% are not satisfied with their understanding of mathematical models; 75% feel the level of mathematics was “too low” in their ecology classes; 90% wanted more mathematics classes for ecologists; and 95% more statistics classes. Respondents thought that 30% of classes in ecology-related degrees should be focused on quantitative disciplines; likely more than what is taught in most universities. The main suggestion to improve quantitative training was to relate theoretical and statistical modeling to applied ecological problems. Improving quantitative training will require more mathematics classes for ecology-related degrees, and also more ecology classes containing mathematical and statistical examples.

Supplemental Information

Supplementary Information

Appendix 1: Questionnaire and Supplementary Figures S1 to 4

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.53v1/supp-1

Additional Information

Competing Interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Author Contributions

Frédéric Barraquand conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, wrote the paper.

Thomas H G Ezard conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, wrote the paper.

Peter S Joergensen conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, wrote the paper.

Naupaka Zimmerman conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, wrote the paper.

Scott A Chamberlain conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, wrote the paper.

Roberto Salguero-Gómez conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, wrote the paper.

Timothy J Curran conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, wrote the paper.

Timothée Poisot conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, wrote the paper.

Human Ethics

The following information was supplied relating to ethical approvals (i.e., approving body and any reference numbers):

The questionnaire was anonymous and voluntary, no identifying questions needing justification were asked.

Grant Disclosures

The following grant information was disclosed by the authors:

THGE is funded by NERC Fellowship NE/J018163/1.

Data Deposition

The following information was supplied regarding the deposition of related data:

FigShare [will be done later]

Funding

FB was funded by EU Biodiversa Project Ecocycles, THGE by NERC Fellowship NE/J018163/1. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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