Development of the Groundwater Concept Inventory to Measure Groundwater Knowledge in a General Audience

• Published in: Ground water Vol. 62; no. 4; pp. 591 - 604
• Main Authors: Ojeda, Ann, Rogers, Stephanie R., Jannach, Charlotte, McNeal, Karen S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Malden, US Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-07-2024; Ground Water Publishing Company
• Subjects: Curriculum; Groundwater; Population studies; Sustainability management; Sustainable practices
• ISSN: 0017-467X; 1745-6584; 1745-6584
• DOI: 10.1111/gwat.13380

Groundwater is a critical resource globally, and understanding groundwater processes is vital to ensure sustainable management practices. However, there are many widely held misconceptions and inaccuracies about groundwater, and we currently lack tools to measure groundwater knowledge across large populations and measure how groundwater knowledge relates to management decisions or behaviors. Here, we present a survey instrument, the Groundwater Concept Inventory (GWCI), that has been designed for general audiences to measure groundwater knowledge comparable to that in an introductory geoscience curriculum. The GWCI was developed using ∼1200 responses using an online platform, Amazon Mechanical Turks, to represent a general population. Responses were evaluated using the Rasch model that configures a relationship between person‐ability and item‐difficulty. We found that the study population displayed similar misconceptions about groundwater compared with previous literature, and that age and education were not strong predictors of GWCI scores. The GWCI can be used by researchers to understand links between knowledge and behavior, and also by other stakeholders to quantify misconceptions about groundwater and target resources for a more informed public.
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Article impact statement: The GWCI is a tool to measure groundwater knowledge, highlight misconceptions, and quantify knowledge gained from educational interventions.