iStarDB (The Astronomy Education Research Repository)
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2071 research outputs found
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Disciplinary discernment from Hertzsprung-Russell-diagrams
No full textThis paper aim at investigating what astronomy students and experts discern from the multitude of different disciplinary affordances available in Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagrams. HR-diagrams are central to all of astronomy and astrophysics and used extensively in teaching. However, knowledge about what students and experts discern from these disciplinary representations are not well known at present. HR-diagrams include many disciplinary affordances that may be hidden to the novice student, hence we aim at investigating and describing what astronomy students at different university levels (introductory, undergraduate, graduate), and astronomy educators/professors, discern from such representation – referred to as disciplinary discernment (Eriksson, Linder, Airey, & Redfors, 2014). Data from a web based questionnaire were analysed using the Anatomy of Disciplinary Discernment (ADD) framework by Eriksson et al. (2014). Preliminary results show (1) the developmental nature of disciplinary discernment from the HR-diagram by the participants and (2) the large discrepancy between disciplinary discernment by the astronomy educators and their students. We describe and discuss the qualitative nature of these differences and how this can have implications for teaching and learning astronomy
Using Galilean satellites’ mutual orbital events as an educational tool for studies of orbital dynamics
No full textWe present a methodology to analyse and interpret a set of telescopic observations of the mutual orbital phenomena between Jupiter’s Galilean satellites (occultation and eclipses) as a practical teaching tool for photometry and astrodynamic studies in astronomy courses. The mutual phenomena we describe took place in 2014 and 2015 and the observations were obtained using a 28 cm aperture telescope and a video camera. We introduce simple models to explain occultation and eclipses of the events, and offer the data and the software for their analysis
Measuring The Distance To The Moon With A Telescope And A Digital Camera In One-Night Observation
No full textWhen the concept of measurement is introduced in basic physics and astronomy courses, astronomical measurements are often reduced to examples of order-of-magnitude. On the other hand, there are descriptive approaches that do not put in contact the students with the instruments or with the objects of study. On the contrary, this work shows how an amateur telescope and a standard digital camera can be used to take images of the Moon, and obtain the distance to the satellite from them. The technique is based on a simple correlation analysis between two images taken from the same place with interval of some hours. The small variation in the angular size of the Moon due to the fact that the Moonobserver distance varies when the Earth rotates can be put in evidence, and serves to obtain the basic data to deduce the distance to the satellite
Meeting students halfway: Increasing self-efficacy and promoting knowledge change in astronomy
No full textTwo motivational factors—self-efficacy and interest—may be especially relevant to deepening students’ understanding of astronomy. We examined the relationship between students’ self-efficacy for, interest in learning about, and changes in their knowledge of stars, as measured by the Star Properties Concept Inventory (SPCI). Approximately 700 undergraduate students taking introductory astronomy responded to surveys at the start and end of their semester-long course. A sequential multiple regression analysis showed that self-efficacy post explains an appreciable percentage of variance in SPCI posttest scores, more than twice the percentage explained by all the pretest variables (SPCI, self-efficacy, and interest) combined. Knowledge and self-efficacy improved significantly over instruction; interest did not. Follow-up analyses revealed that instructors whose classes increased in self-efficacy also had the greatest increases in knowledge scores. Interviews with these instructors suggest they provide their students with more opportunities for mastery experiences with elaborated, performance-related feedback, as well as strong positive verbal persuasion and vicarious experiences through peer instruction. Through increased understanding of the relationship between motivational constructs (e.g., self-efficacy, interest) and knowledge, we can both improve our models and better inform instruction
Research on Teaching Astronomy in the Planetarium
No full textFrom a noted specialist in astronomy education and outreach, this Brief provides an overview of the most influential discipline-based science education research literature now guiding contemporary astronomy teaching. In recent years, systematic studies of effective and efficient teaching strategies have provided a solid foundation for enhancing college-level students’ learning in astronomy. Teaching astronomy and planetary science at the college-level was once best characterized as professor-centered, information-download lectures. Today, astronomy faculty are striving to drastically improve the learning environment by using innovative teaching approaches. Uniquely, the authors have organized this book around strands of commonly employed astronomy teaching strategies to help readers, professors, and scholars quickly access the most relevant work while, simultaneously, avoiding the highly specialized, technical vocabulary of constructivist educational pedagogies unfamiliar to most astronomy professors. For readers who are currently teaching astronomy at the college level—or those who plan on teaching at the college level in the future—this Brief provides an indispensable guide
Can Engaging in Science Practices Promote Deep Understanding of Them?
No full textIt is now widely accepted, and indeed emphasized in the Next Generation Science Standards, that science education should encompass scientific practice as well as science content. By participating in an intellectual community engaged in the broad range of activities that constitute scientific inquiry, rather than simply mastering isolated science procedures, it is hoped students will come to better understand and appreciate the norms, goals, and values that govern the conduct of science. We put this expectation to empirical test by engaging a secondary school science class in an extended problem-based activity that included design of investigations, multivariable causal analysis, and argumentation. Compared to students in a nonparticipating control group, in delayed assessments involving new content, participating students showed more advanced investigation, analysis, and argumentation skills, but also superior epistemological understanding regarding science as entailing the evaluation of claims in relation to available evidence
The Impact of an Authentic Science Experience on STEM Identity: A Preliminary Analysis of YouthAstroNet and MicroObservatory Telescope Network Participant Data
No full textIn this astronomy education program featuring robotic telescopes, pre-post changes in youth participants’ science affinity, STEM identity, and STEM career interest are modeled to measure impact of core program elements. These elements are designed to support authentic inquiry: e.g. requesting images with robotic telescopes; using image processing software to enhance and make measurements of images; asking questions; connecting science to everyday life
Insights about large-scale online peer assessment from an analysis of an astronomy MOOC
No full textIn this work we investigate the peer grading assignments which were an integral part of the astronomy Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) (Astronomy: Exploring Time and Space) provided through Coursera from March to May 2015. Our general goal is to assess the role of peer graded assignments in such courses and how they contribute to students’ learning and motivation. In order to achieve this broad goal we look at the peer grading process from multiple perspectives. We present an analysis of demographics for peer grading participants and show how they are different from the general course population. We also look at different aspects of peer grading assignments such as lengths of essays, time spent grading, number of gradings performed, final grades and percentage of relevant videos watched. We compare these distributions for different assignments and also their correlations on a level of individual learners. We show that participation in the first peer graded assignment is the best predictor of completion for the course as a whole. Moreover, learners who did well on the first peer graded assignment show better engagement and do better in the course overall. Finally, we report on validity and reliability of peer graders as compared to instructor graders and trained undergraduate graders
Switching Between Everyday and Scientific Language
No full textThe research reported here investigated the everyday and scientific repertoires of children involved in semi-structured, Piagetian interviews carried out to check their understanding of dynamic astronomical concepts like daytime and night-time. It focused on the switching taking place between embedded and disembedded thinking; on the imagery which subjects referred to in their verbal dialogue and their descriptions of drawings and play-dough models of the Earth, Sun and Moon; and it examined the prevalence and character of animism and figurative speech in children’s thinking. Five hundred and thirty-nine children (aged 3–18) from Wairarapa in New Zealand (171 boys and 185 girls) and Changchun in China (99 boys and 84 girls) took part in the study. Modified ordinal scales for the relevant concept categories were used to classify children’s responses and data from each age group (with numbers balanced as closely as practicable by culture and gender) analysed with Kolmogorov-Smirnov two-sample tests (at an alpha level of 0.05). Although, in general, there was consistency of dynamic concepts within and across media and their associated modalities in keeping with the theory of conceptual coherence (see Blown and Bryce 2010; Bryce and Blown 2016), there were several cases of inter-modal and intra-modal switching in both cultures. Qualitative data from the interview protocols revealed how children switch between everyday and scientific language (in both directions) and use imagery in response to questioning. The research indicates that children’s grasp of scientific ideas in this field may ordinarily be under-estimated if one only goes by formal scientific expression and vocabulary
Change or Durability? The Contribution of Metaconceptual Awareness in Preservice Early Childhood Teachers’ Learning of Science Concepts
No full textThis longitudinal study examined the role of metaconceptual awareness in the change and the durability of preservice teachers’ conceptual understandings over the course of several months. Sixteen preservice early childhood teachers participated in the study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to reveal the participants’ conceptual understandings of lunar phases (pre, post, and delayed-post) and level of metaconceptual awareness (delayed-post only). Based on the change and stability in participants’ conceptual understandings from pre to post and from post to delayed-post interviews, participants’ conceptual understandings were assigned into three groups that described the profile of their long-term conceptual understandings: “decay or stability”, “continuous growth”, and “growth and stability”. The results indicated that participants in the “continuous growth” and “growth and stability” groups had significantly higher metaconceptual awareness scores than participants in the “decay or stability” group. The results provided evidence that metaconceptual awareness plays a more decisive role in the restructuring of conceptual understandings than the durability of conceptual understandings