A Cross-age Study of Senior High School Students' Conceptions of Basic Astronomy Concepts

Senior high school students' astronomy conceptions were analysed by means of a written questionnaire presented to them during the beginning of the first semester. The main findings were: (1) Most students answered correctly the questions dealing with the following subjects: the day-night cycle, the reason for the different seasons, and the time of the Moon's revolution around the Earth and the Sun. (2) Most students chose their best account for changes in the Moon's phases as the Moon moving around the Earth. Despite that, most students thought that the Moon must be in its full phase in order to get a total solar eclipse. (3) Most students underestimated distances in the Universe and overestimated the Earth's diameter. (4) Most students answered incorrectly the questions dealing with the following subjects: Sun overhead at noon, longitude time zones, and Moon's rotation. (5) Students studying physics succeeded significantly better than their colleagues in some of the subjects that were taught as a part of their optics and mechanics courses.     

Children's conceptions of the earth,sun and moon

Understanding of the Earth/Sun/Moon system represents a major cultural nexus in the history of ideas as well as being an important conceptual area in junior science teaching. The situation is one in which the objects in question can be observed but do not lend themselves to hands‐on experience in the case of the Sun and Moon or to obvious meaningful experience of the system in the case of the Earth.

Children from 9 to 12 years of age were questioned using a clinical interview technique and stimulus materials, about the shape, size and motion of the Earth, Sun and Moon. A number of alternative views appear to be held. The use of a similar procedure with a group of children would seem to offer a powerful teaching methodology in which both teacher and students gain from the dialectic learning situation that is developed by this technique ‐ apart from providing insights concerning children's understanding.     

Children's Concepts of the Shape and Size of the Earth,Sun and Moon

Children's understandings of the shape and relative sizes of the Earth, Sun and Moon have been extensively researched and in a variety of ways. Much is known about the confusions which arise as young people try to grasp ideas about the world and our neighbouring celestial bodies. Despite this, there remain uncertainties about the conceptual models which young people use and how they theorise in the process of acquiring more scientific conceptions. In this article, the relevant published research is reviewed critically and in-depth in order to frame a series of investigations using semi-structured interviews carried out with 248 participants aged 3–18 years from China and New Zealand. Analysis of qualitative and quantitative data concerning the reasoning of these subjects (involving cognitive categorisations and their rank ordering) confirmed that (a) concepts of Earth shape and size are embedded in a ‘super-concept’ or ‘Earth notion’ embracing ideas of physical shape, ‘ground’ and ‘sky’, habitation of and identity with Earth; (b) conceptual development is similar in cultures where teachers hold a scientific world view and (c) children's concepts of shape and size of the Earth, Sun and Moon can be usefully explored within an ethnological approach using multi-media interviews combined with observational astronomy. For these young people, concepts of the shape and size of the Moon and Sun were closely correlated with their Earth notion concepts and there were few differences between the cultures despite their contrasts. Analysis of the statistical data used Kolmogorov–Smirnov Two-Sample Tests with hypotheses confirmed at K–S alpha level 0.05; r_s : p?<?0.01.     

Big Ideas: A review of astronomy education research 1974–2008

This paper reviews astronomy education research carried out among school students, teachers, and museum visitors over a 35‐year period from 1974 until 2008. One hundred and three peer‐reviewed journal articles were examined, the majority of whose research dealt with conceptions of astronomical phenomena with 40% investigating intervention activities. We used a conceptual framework of “big ideas” in astronomy, five of which accounted for over 80% of the studies: conceptions of the Earth, gravity, the day–night cycle, the seasons, and the Earth–Sun–Moon system. Most of the remaining studies were of stars, the solar system, and the concepts of size and distance. The findings of the review have implications for the future teaching of, and research in, the discipline. Conceptions of the Earth and the day–night cycle are relatively well‐understood, especially by older students, while the Moon phases, the seasons, and gravity are concepts that most people find difficult both to understand and explain. Thoroughly planned interventions are likely to be the most effective way of implementing conceptual change, and such studies have been well‐researched in the past 15 years. Much of this recent research has worked with constructivist theories resulting in methodological and theoretical insights of value to researchers and practitioners in the field. It is recommended that future research should work across the disciplinary boundaries of astronomy education at school and teacher education levels, and aim to disseminate findings more effectively within the education systems.     

Misconceptions of Astronomical Distances

Previous empirical studies using multiple‐choice procedures have suggested that there are misconceptions about the scale of astronomical distances. The present study provides a quantitative estimate of the nature of this misconception among US university students by asking them, in an open‐ended response format, to make estimates of the distances from the Earth to the Moon, to the Sun, to the nearest star, and to the nearest galaxy. The 83 participants were asked to give their estimates on a scale with the Earth the size of a baseball, using a familiar local landmark for its position, and asked to indicate the appropriate location of the other astronomical objects on this scale. These psychological estimates were then compared to the actual physical distances. The data showed that while there is great variation, a general pattern emerged that US undergraduate participants overestimated the distance from the Earth to the Moon, moderately underestimated the distance from the Earth to the Sun, and dramatically underestimated the distances to the nearest star and to the nearest galaxy. The results suggest that these distance misconceptions should receive direct instructional attention in science courses.     

Teaching future teachers basic astronomy concepts—seasonal changes—at a time of reform in science education

Bearing in mind students' misconceptions about basic concepts in astronomy, the present study conducted a series of constructivist activities aimed at changing future elementary and junior high school teachers' conceptions about the cause of seasonal changes, and several characteristics of the Sun–Earth–Moon relative movements like Moon phases, Sun and Moon eclipses, and others. The activities and results concerning the cause of seasonal changes are reported. Both the experimental class and the control groups improved their grasp of basic astronomy concepts statistically significantly, although the experimental class made the most impressive progress of all. Regarding subjects relevant to this study (seasonal changes), only the experimental class showed a statistically significant improvement, which justifies the constructivist approach. We conclude that in implementing a reform in the science curriculum, the change has to include the subjects taught and also the way they are taught. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 879–906, 2006     

A comparison of primary school pupils' ability to express procedural understanding in science through speech and writing

In this article the answers provided by 98, 12-year-old students to questions included in an end-of-year science examination are analysed. Almost all of the students are able to explain day and night, but the reason why the Moon always presents the same face to the Earth is less well understood. Estimations of the time in Earth days from sunrise to sunrise on the Moon vary. Most students can explain the apparent movement of stars across the night-sky, but their direction is less certain. Implications of the findings for teaching and learning are addressed.     

Changing Pre-school Children's Conceptions of the Day/Night Cycle Changer les Conceptions d'Enfants d'Age Prescolaire sur le Phenomene du Cercle 'Jour-Nuit' Cambiar las Concepciones de los Ninos Preescolares en el Ciclo Dia/Noche

A semi-structured interview was individually administered to 33 children aged 5-6. The interview raised questions about the shapes of the Sun and the Earth as well as the cause of the day/night cycle. A teaching intervention designed to teach pre-school age children these concepts was then implemented with groups of 6-7 children. The intervention's effectiveness was consequently evaluated (after 2 weeks) using an interview similar to that conducted prior to the intervention. The results of the study showed that the majority of children readily accepted certain aspects of the scientific explanations of the day/night cycle. Specifically, the majority accepted that the Sun and the Earth are separate spherical objects, but fewer children attributed the day/night cycle to rotation of the Earth on its axis. Most seemed puzzled by the simultaneous movements of the Earth around the Sun and around its axis. Educational and research implications are discussed. Une semi-directive interview individuelle etait administree a 33 enfants de 5 a 6 ans. L'interview contenait des questions sur le scheme du soleil et de la terre et aussi sur la cause du cercle 'jour-nuit'. Une intervention didactique etait apres introduite aux groups de 6-7 enfants et ses resultats etaient finalement evalues, en utilisant la meme interview, deux semaines apres l'intervention. Les resultats de cet etude montrent que la majorite d'enfants ont accepte certains aspects des points de vue scientifiques concernant le cercle 'jour-nuit'. Plus specifiquement, la plupart d'enfants ont accepte que les schemes du soleil et de la terre ressemblaient a une sphere, mais moins d'enfants ont attribue le cercle 'jour-nuit' a la rotation de la terre autour du soi-meme. Quelques enfants n'ont pas developpe les correctes conceptions et c'etait apparent qu'ils avaient des difficultes a comprendre les mouvements simultanes de la terre autour du soleil et du soi-meme. Se administro individualmente una entrevista semiestructurada a 33 ninos de edades comprendidas entre los 5 y 6 anos. La entrevista incluja cuestiones sobre formas del sol y de la tierra y tambien la causa del ciclo dia/noche. Luego se introdujo una intervencion didactica a grupos de 6-7 ninos de edad preescolar para ensenarles estos conceptos. La efectividad de la intervencion file evaluada 2 semanas mas tarde, con una entrevista parecida a la realizada antes de la intervencion. Los resultados del estudjo mostraron que la mayoria de los ninos aceptaban facilmente ciertos aspectos de las explicaciones cientificas del ciclo dia/noche. Mas especialmente, la mayoria aceptaba que el sol y la tierra eran objetos esfericos diferentes, pero menos ninos atribuian el hecho de que el ciclo dia/noche se relacionara con la rotacion de la tierra alrededor de sil eje. Muchos parecian sorprenderse con los movimientos simultaneos de la tierra alrededor del sol y alrededor de si misma. Se discuten las implicaciones educativas y de investigacion.     

The importance of images in astronomy education

The abundance of images concerning textbooks doesn't always facilitate the understanding of the concepts. In this study, the phases of the moon, the images shown in Primary and Secondary textbooks, the relationships between the written theoretical content and its illustration, as well as the problems of comprehension of some images, are studied. We worked with 78 students in the third year of a university teacher-training course. The images used to illustrate the phases of the moon are not, by themselves, sufficiently explanatory . Students haven't a clear idea of the Sun/Earth/Moon model and they lack some concepts with which to build it. They have also difficulty in expressing themselves in diagrams. Very strong inducements to attract attention are required in the written text, as well as specific instructions on the part of the teacher, if learning is to take place.     

A Cross‐age Study of Children’s Knowledge of Apparent Celestial Motion

The US National Science Education Standards and the Benchmarks for Science Literacy recommend that students understand the apparent patterns of motion of the Sun, Moon, and stars by the end of early elementary school, yet no research has specifically examined these concepts from an Earth‐based perspective with this age group. This study examines children’s understanding of the patterns of apparent celestial motion among first‐grade, third‐grade, and eighth‐grade students, and investigates the extent to which these concepts develop from elementary to middle school in students without targeted instruction. Twenty students at each grade level (total n = 60) were interviewed using a novel interview setting: a small dome representing the sky, which allowed students to demonstrate their ideas. Analysis reveals that elementary and middle school students hold a variety of non‐scientific ideas about all aspects of apparent celestial motion. While the eighth‐grade students’ understanding of the apparent motion of the Sun shows a greater level of accuracy compared with the third‐grade students, across the majority of topics of apparent celestial motion, the overall level of accuracy shows little change from third grade to eighth grade. Just as prior research has demonstrated the need for instruction to improve children’s understanding of the nature of celestial objects and their actual motions, these results support the need for research on instructional strategies that improve students’ understanding of celestial motion as seen from their own perspective.     

Representations over the Earth’s shape and the process of day and night from Nahua indigenous schoolchildren / Representaciones sobre la forma de la Tierra y del proceso día y noche en niños de escuelas indígenas Nahuas

This research presents the way in which children from a Nahua indigenous community build representations of the Earth’s shape, as well as the process that causes day and night. Concepts from school and local culture were studied. For the first case, a questionnaire was applied to 331 children, out of which 38 children were then interviewed on the topics from the questionnaire. For the cultural ideas, three teachers from the region and 30 children from the sample were interviewed. The results show that the representations depend on the form of questioning and the existence of three models: a flat structure with a celestial dome and mechanisms that hide or remove the Sun or the Moon in order to create day and night; a spherical structure with a surrounding sky, where the Sun and Moon rise and set; and a transitional model with a hollow sphere, flat surface and celestial dome. Cultural ideas do not appear to have any influence over these models, probably due to a loss of the community’s cosmogonic knowledge and the age of the children.     

Knowledge Restructuring in the Development of Children’s Cosmologies

The development of children’s cosmologies was investigated over a 13‐year period, using multi‐modal, in‐depth interviews with 686 children (217 boys, 227 girls from New Zealand and 129 boys, 113 girls from China), aged 2–18. Children were interviewed while they observed the apparent motion of the Sun and Moon, and other features of the Earth; drew their ideas of the shape and motion of the Earth, Moon and Sun, and the causes of daytime and night‐time; then modelled them using play‐dough; which led into discussion of related ideas. These interviews revealed that children’s cosmologies were far richer than previously thought and surprisingly similar in developmental trends across the two cultures. There was persuasive evidence of three types of conceptual change: a long‐term process (over years) similar to weak restructuring; a medium‐term process (over months) akin to radical restructuring; and a dynamic form of conceptual crystallisation (often in seconds) whereby previously unconnected/conflicting concepts gel to bring new meaning to previously isolated ideas. The interview technique enabled the researchers to ascertain children’s concepts from intuitive, cultural, and scientific levels. The evidence supports the argument that children have coherent cosmologies that they actively create to make sense of the world rather than fragmented, incoherent “knowledge‐in‐pieces”.     

Seventh grade students' mental models of the greenhouse effect

This constructivist study investigates 225 student drawings and explanations from three different schools in the midwest in the US, to identify seventh grade students' mental models of the greenhouse effect. Five distinct mental models were derived from an inductive analysis of the content of the students' drawings and explanations: Model 1, a ‘greenhouse’ for growing plants; Model 2, greenhouse gases cause ozone depletion or formation, causing the Earth to warm; Model 3, greenhouse gases, but no heating mechanism, simply gases in the atmosphere; Model 4, greenhouse gases ‘trap’ the sun's rays, heating the Earth; and Model 5, the sun's rays are ‘bounced’ or reflected back and forth between the Earth's surface and greenhouse gases, heating the Earth. Science textbooks are critiqued in light of the students' mental models and curricular and instructional implications are explored.     

Design of virtual environments for the comprehension of planetary phenomena based on students' ideas

Children enter the classroom with a wide range of misconceptions about planetary phenomena. Conventional teaching methods usually cannot overcome these difficulties, which we consider may be because of the lack of appropriate teaching aids. The purpose of the present study is the design and development of an educational virtual environment for the support of the teaching of planetary phenomena, particularly of the movements of the Earth and Sun, the day and night cycle and the change of seasons. Our interactive three-dimensional (3D) virtual environment was based on the results of an empirical study of 102 secondary school students and provides students with new experiences, personal involvement and close-up examination of the phenomena under study. Our first results after the use of the virtual environment showed that the majority of students enthused about interacting with it and modified their misconceptions concerning the day-night cycle and the change of seasons.     

From Earth to Heaven: Using ‘Newton’s Cannon’ Thought Experiment for Teaching Satellite Physics

Thought Experiments are powerful tools in both scientific thinking and in the teaching of science. In this study, the historical Thought Experiment (TE) ‘Newton’s Cannon’ was used as a tool to teach concepts relating to the motion of satellites to students at upper secondary level. The research instruments were: (a) a teaching-interview designed and implemented according to the Teaching Experiment methodology and (b) an open-ended questionnaire administered to students 2 weeks after the teaching-interview. The sample consisted of forty students divided into eleven groups. The teaching and learning processes which occurred during the teaching-interview were recorded and analyzed. The findings of the present study show that the use of the TE helped students to mentally construct a physical system which has nothing to do with their everyday experience (i.e. they had to imagine themselves as observers in a context in which the whole Earth was visible) and to draw conclusions about phenomena within this system. Specifically, students managed (1) to conclude that if an object is appropriately launched, it may be placed in an orbit around the Earth and to support this conclusion by giving necessary arguments, and (2) to realize that the same laws of physics describe, on the one hand, the motion of the Moon around the Earth (and the motion of other celestial bodies as well) and, on the other hand, the motion of ‘terrestrial’ objects (i.e. objects on the Earth, such as a tennis ball). The main difficulties students met were caused by their idea that there is no gravity in the vacuum (i.e. the area outside of the Earth’s atmosphere) and also by their everyday experience, according to which it is impossible for a projectile to move continuously parallel to the ground.     

Developing a construct‐based assessment to examine students' analogical reasoning around physical models in Earth Science

In recent years, science education has placed increasing importance on learners' mastery of scientific reasoning. This growing emphasis presents a challenge for both developers and users of assessments. We report on our effort around the conceptualization, development, and testing the validity of an assessment of students' ability to reason around physical dynamic models in Earth Science. Building from the research literature on analogical mapping and informed by the current perspectives on learning progressions, we present a three‐tiered construct describing the increasing sophistication of students' analogical reasoning around the correspondences and non‐correspondences between models and the Earth System: at the level of entities (Level 1), configurations in space or relative motion of entities (Level 2), and the mechanism or cause for observed phenomena (Level 3). Grounded in a construct‐centered design approach, we describe our process for developing assessments in order to examine and validate this construct, including how we selected topics and models, designed items, and developed outcome spaces. We present the specific example of one assessment centered on moon phases, which was administered to 164 8th and 9th grade Earth Science students as a pre/postmeasure. Two hundred ninety‐four responses were analyzed using a Rasch modeling approach. Item difficulties and student proficiency scores were calculated and analyzed regarding their relative performance with respect to the three levels of the construct. The analysis results provided initial evidence in support of the construct as conceived, with students displaying a range of analogical reasoning spanning all three construct levels. It also identified problematic items that merit further examination. Overall, the assessment has provided us the opportunity to better describe and frame the cognitive uses of models by students during learning situations in Earth Science. Implications for instruction and future directions for research in this area are discussed. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 713–743, 2012     

Astronomy alternative conceptions in pre-adolescent students in Western Australia

ABSTRACT

Alternative conceptions in astronomy are a road block to new learning. Astronomy content is included in the Australian Curriculum (AC) from Year 3 and then intermittently in Year 5, Year 7 and Year 10. In accepting that science is socio-culturally constructed, it is important for teachers to have a clear understanding of the alternative conceptions that students bring with them to the science classroom. This article reports on the alternative conceptions elicited from 546 students ranging from Year 5 through Year 7 using a modified form of the Astronomy Diagnostic Test [Danaia, L. (2006). Students’ experiences, perceptions and performance in junior secondary school science: An intervention study involving a remote telescope (Doctoral dissertation). Charles Sturt University, Bathurst]. Results show that some well identified alternative conceptions, such as the ‘eclipse model’ to explain the phases of the Moon, exist before students enter high school and prior to any formal learning on the topic. In addition, this research identified a number of alternative conceptions held by pre-adolescent students in Western Australia that were based on knowledge that should have been consolidated by students in Year 3, viz., the relative movements of the Earth, Moon and Sun. Armed with students’ alternative conceptions as a part of their pedagogical content knowledge, teachers can construct active learning experiences that will challenge students’ existing constructs in order to allow for new learning. This sample suggests that we need to identify the reasons behind the lack of consolidation of the foundation astronomy content of the Australian Curriculum outlined for students in Year 3.     

Medical students' reactions to anatomic dissection and the phenomenon of cadaver naming

The teaching of gross anatomy has, for centuries, relied on the dissection of human cadavers, and this formative experience is known to evoke strong emotional responses. The authors hypothesized that the phenomenon of cadaver naming is a coping mechanism used by medical students and that it correlates with other attitudes about dissection and body donation. The authors developed a 33‐question electronic survey to which 1,156 medical students at 12 medical schools in the United States voluntarily responded (November 2011–March 2012). They also surveyed course directors from each institution regarding their curricula and their observations of students' coping mechanisms. The majority of students (574, 67.8%) named their cadaver. Students most commonly cited the cadaver's age as the reason they chose a particular name for the cadaver. A minority of the students who did not name the cadaver reported finding the practice of naming disrespectful. Almost all students indicated that they would have liked to know more about their donor, particularly his or her medical history. Finally, students who knew the birth name of the donor used it less frequently than predicted. The authors found that the practice of naming cadavers is extremely prevalent among medical students and that inventive naming serves as a beneficial coping mechanism. The authors suggest that developing a method of providing students with more information about their cadaver while protecting the anonymity of the donor and family would be useful. Anat Sci Educ 7: 169–180. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.