Does Taking an Introductory Astronomy Course Increase Student Understanding of the Nature of Science?

Details Does Taking an Introductory Astronomy Course Increase Student Understanding of the Nature of Science? Does Taking an Introductory Astronomy Course Increase Student Understanding of the Nature of Science?

Jan 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21342907d&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #429.07; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.261

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Surveys of those who teach Astro 101 say that increasing students’ understanding of the nature and process of science is an important goal. It is also one of the justifications for the "breadth requirement” that supports most of the Astro 101 enterprise in the US. However, little work has been done to measure if this goal is achieved.
We interviewed 60 students drawn from two introductory astronomy classes at the beginning and end of the course. Each student was asked 9 questions concerning the nature of science and how it is applied. One of the two introductory classes made a special point of explicitly discussing the nature of science and "science vs. pseudoscience.” Otherwise the two classes were similar.
We are investigating how students changed in 4 areas:
1. Do they understand what science is?
2. Do they have the ability to think scientifically themselves?
3. Can they distinguish believable scientific results from bogus ones?
4. Do students develop "basic science literacy?"
In addition to the interviews we gave the Epistemological Beliefs Assessment for Physical Science (EBAPS, Elby et al. 2001; www.flaguide.org) to approximately 300 students.
Initial results will be reported in our poster, and full results in a publication expected in early 2009. In addition, the results of this study are being used to develop a survey instrument designed specifically for use with Astro 101 students to evaluate the effectiveness of instruction on their scientific attitudes and beliefs as a Collaboration of Astronomy Teaching Scholars (CATS) research project.
We would like to thank the NSF for funding under Grant No. 0715517, a CCLI Phase III Grant for the Collaboration of Astronomy Teaching Scholars (CATS) Program.

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