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December 2012

Volume 11, Issue 1, Articles (01xxxx)

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Urban Middle-School Science Teachers Beliefs about the Influence of Their Astronomer-Educator Partnerships on Students’ Astronomy Learner Characteristics

Rommel J. Miranda

2012, AER, 11 (1), 010101, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/AER2011038

Online Publication Date: 23 January 2012

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This qualitative study investigates the extent to which urban middle-school science teachers’ beliefs about their students’ astronomy learner characteristics were influenced by their partnership with an astronomer in their classroom. Twelve urban middle-school science teachers were interviewed after their participation in Project ASTRO during the 2009–2010 academic year using semistructured, in-depth interview techniques. Constant comparative analysis was used to analyze the interview transcripts. Themes that emerged from the data were formulated in relation to the study’s grand tour research question. The findings suggest that teachers believed that their partnership with an astronomer largely influenced their students’ level of motivation and increased their students’ level of questioning. Teachers also believed that their astronomer partner positively enhanced their students’ learning experiences in astronomy by making the subject area more realistic, relevant, and scientifically rigorous. Additionally, the study showed that teachers believed that their partnership with an astronomer in their classroom positively affected their students’ behaviors and attitudes in middle-achieving and high-achieving schools. The study further revealed that partnering with an astronomer had a relatively minor impact on urban middle-school science teachers’ beliefs about their students’ mathematical cognitive ability. The implications of these findings suggest that astronomer-educator partnerships may enhance urban middle-school students’ learning experiences in astronomy and promote their engagement with science. However, new educational approaches need to be developed and assessed to help bolster students’ understanding of astronomy, especially in low-achieving urban school settings.
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01.40.ek Secondary school
01.40.Di Course design and evaluation
01.40.Fk Research in physics education
01.40.gb Teaching methods and strategies

Improving Student Attitudes about Learning Science and Student Scientific Reasoning Skills

Douglas K. Duncan and Leilani Arthurs

2012, AER, 11 (1), 010102, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/AER2009067 | Cited 1 time

Online Publication Date: 24 January 2012

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Student attitudes about learning science and student ideas about the nature of science were compared at the end of two astronomy courses taught in Fall 2007, a course with a traditional astronomy curriculum and a transformed course, whose traditional astronomy curriculum was supplemented by an embedded curriculum that explicitly addressed the nature of science and student metacognition (i.e., thinking about one’s own thinking.) The embedded curriculum in the transformed course gave students practice at evaluating examples of valid science and pseudoscience found on the internet; it also provided students opportunities to discuss what they think about learning science. Student attitudes and ideas were assessed using the epistemological beliefs assessment for physical science (EBAPS) survey, interviews, and written responses to an open-ended exam question. Our results indicate that the embedded curriculum led the majority of students in the transformed course to think that anyone can learn science, whereas a majority of students in the traditional course thought that only individuals with innate abilities can learn science and think scientifically. Students in the transformed course also reported much more confidence in their ability to evaluate the scientific validity of information found on the internet. Furthermore, students from the transformed course valued making sense of science more than students from the traditional course. The embedded curriculum could readily be used in any course for nonscience majors, not just introductory astronomy.
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01.40.-d Education
01.40.Fk Research in physics education
01.40.G- Curricula and evaluation

A Study of General Education Astronomy Students’ Understandings of Cosmology. Part III. Evaluating Four Conceptual Cosmology Surveys: An Item Response Theory Approach

Colin S. Wallace, Edward E. Prather, and Douglas K. Duncan

2012, AER, 11 (1), 010103, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/AER2011031

Online Publication Date: 02 February 2012

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This is the third of five papers detailing our national study of general education astronomy students’ conceptual and reasoning difficulties with cosmology. In this paper, we use item response theory to analyze students’ responses to three out of the four conceptual cosmology surveys we developed. The specific item response theory model we use is known as the partial credit model. Since readers may be unfamiliar with the partial credit model, we provide a pedagogical introduction to this model. We use the partial credit model to assess the reliabilities of the four survey forms and to determine the probabilities of students achieving different scores on survey items.
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01.50.-i Educational aids
02.50.Cw Probability theory
95.80.+p Astronomical catalogs, atlases, sky surveys, databases, retrieval systems, archives, etc.
98.80.Jk Mathematical and relativistic aspects of cosmology

A Study of General Education Astronomy Students’ Understandings of Cosmology. Part IV. Common Difficulties Students Experience with Cosmology

Colin S. Wallace, Edward E. Prather, and Douglas K. Duncan

2012, AER, 11 (1), 010104, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/AER2011032

Online Publication Date: 02 February 2012

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This is our fourth paper in our five paper series describing our national study of general education astronomy students’ conceptual and reasoning difficulties with cosmology. While previous papers in this series focused on the processes by which we collected and quantitatively analyzed our data, this paper presents the most common pre-instruction conceptual and reasoning difficulties identified from our qualitative analysis of students’ written responses. We discuss students’ naïve ideas about the expansion and evolution of the universe, the Big Bang, interpreting Hubble plots, and the evidence for dark matter in spiral galaxies.
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01.40.Di Course design and evaluation
98.80.Bp Origin and formation of the Universe

Student Understanding of Gravity in Introductory College Astronomy

Kathryn E. Williamson and Shannon Willoughby

2012, AER, 11 (1), 010105, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/AER2011025

Online Publication Date: 12 March 2012

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Twenty-four free-response questions were developed to explore introductory college astronomy students’ understanding of gravity in a variety of contexts, including in and around Earth, throughout the solar system, and in hypothetical situations. Questions were separated into three questionnaires, each of which was given to a section of introductory college astronomy with 143, 137, and 32 respondents, respectively. Combined with 15 interviews, the exploratory, open-response format allowed themes to emerge naturally, with both documented and undocumented misconceptions observed. The breadth of questions allowed for descriptions of possible student mental frameworks, including alternative models and misapplication of the scientific model.
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01.40.-d Education
01.40.G- Curricula and evaluation

Space to Grow: LCOGT.net and Improving Science Engagement in Schools

Lena Danaia, David McKinnon, Quentin Parker, Michael Fitzgerald, and Paul Stenning

2012, AER, 11 (1), 010106, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/AER2012007

Online Publication Date: 14 May 2012

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Space to Grow is an Australian Research Council Grant that engages high school students in real science and supports their teachers in implementing inquiry-based approaches using astronomy as the focus. Currently, Grade 9–12 students and their science teachers from three educational jurisdictions in one Australian state are acquiring, and making scientific use of, observational data from the 2-m Faulkes Telescopes owned by Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network. Data are being collected to investigate the impact of the project on students and teachers. Some investigations have led students to work with astronomers to publish their results in the astronomical literature.
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01.40.-d Education
01.50.Qb Laboratory course design, organization, and evaluation
01.40.ek Secondary school
01.40.Fk Research in physics education

A Classical Test Theory Analysis of the Light and Spectroscopy Concept Inventory National Study Data Set

Wayne M. Schlingman, Edward E. Prather, Colin S. Wallace, Alexander L. Rudolph, and Gina Brissenden

2012, AER, 11 (1), 010107, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/AER2012010

Online Publication Date: 22 June 2012

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This paper is the first in a series of investigations into the data from the recent national study using the Light and Spectroscopy Concept Inventory (LSCI). In this paper, we use classical test theory to form a framework of results that will be used to evaluate individual item difficulties, item discriminations, and the overall reliability of the LSCI. We perform an analysis of individual students’ normalized gains, providing further insight into the prior results from this data set. This investigation allows us to better understand the efficacy of measuring student achievement using the LSCI. Future papers will discuss our investigation of the data from the recent national study using item response theory (IRT).
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01.40.Fk Research in physics education

Digital Devices, Distraction, and Student Performance: Does In-Class Cell Phone Use Reduce Learning?

Douglas K. Duncan, Angel R. Hoekstra, and Bethany R. Wilcox

2012, AER, 11 (1), 010108, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/AER2012011

Online Publication Date: 31 July 2012

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The recent increase in use of digital devices such as laptop computers, iPads, and web-enabled cell phones has generated concern about how technologies affect student performance. Combining observation, survey, and interview data, this research assesses the effects of technology use on student attitudes and learning. Data were gathered in eight introductory science courses at a major university. Results show a significant negative correlation between in-class phone use and final grades, with use of cell phones corresponding to a drop of 0.36 ± 0.08 on a 4-point scale where 4.0 = A. These findings are consistent with research (Ophir, Nass, and Wagner 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106, 15583) suggesting students cannot multitask nearly as effectively as they think they can. While 75% of students reported regular cell phone use, observation suggests undergraduates typically underreport the frequency of their in-class use of digital devices.
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01.40.-d Education
01.40.Fk Research in physics education
01.40.gb Teaching methods and strategies

Factors Contributing to Amateur Astronomers’ Involvement in Education and Public Outreach

Victor Yocco, Eric C Jones, and Martin Storksdieck

2012, AER, 11 (1), 010109, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/AER2011040

Online Publication Date: 13 August 2012

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Amateur astronomers play a critical role engaging the general public in astronomy. The role of individual and club-related factors is explored using data from two surveys (Survey 1 N = 1142; Survey 2 N = 1242) of amateur astronomers. Analysis suggests that formal or informal training in astronomy, age, club membership, length of club membership, and participation in club service are factors that contribute to the likelihood of an amateur engaging in education and public outreach. Sex (male or female) and club service were found to influence the level of outreach amateurs engage in. Interventions designed to increase amateur involvement in education and public outreach should consider these factors.
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95.90.+v Historical astronomy and archaeoastronomy; and other topics in fundamental astronomy and astrophysics; instrumentation, techniques, and astronomical observations
01.75.+m Science and society

A Life in the Universe Survey

Michael C. LoPresto and Jennifer Hubble-Zdanowski

2012, AER, 11 (1), 010110, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/AER2012020

Online Publication Date: 30 August 2012

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The “Life in the Universe Survey” is a twelve-question assessment instrument. Largely based on the factors of the Drake equation, it is designed to survey students’ initial estimates of its factors and to gauge how estimates change with instruction. The survey was used in sections of a seminar course focusing specifically on life in the universe where it was designed and validated as well as in sections of introductory astronomy where life in the universe is only a single topic covered at the end of the semester.
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01.50.-i Educational aids
95.90.+v Historical astronomy and archaeoastronomy; and other topics in fundamental astronomy and astrophysics; instrumentation, techniques, and astronomical observations
98.80.-k Cosmology

Non-Scientific Beliefs Among Undergraduate Students

Chris Impey, Sanlyn Buxner, and Jessie Antonellis

2012, AER, 11 (1), 010111, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/AER2012016

Online Publication Date: 29 October 2012

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A survey of over 11 000 undergraduate students' knowledge and attitudes related to science and technology over a 22-year period included statements that probed faith-based beliefs and various aspects of pseudoscience belief and superstition. The results reveal that nonscientific ways of thinking are resistant to formal instruction, changing surprisingly little over the course of a college career that typically includes three science courses. The level of basic science knowledge among undergraduates is only weakly coupled to attitudes towards pseudoscience, and it coexists with attitudes and beliefs that are faith-based. These results provide a challenge for educators who seek to improve the generally low level of science literacy among college graduates and members of the general public.
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01.70.+w Philosophy of science
01.40.-d Education
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