Linking introductory astronomy students’ basic science knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, sources of information, and information literacy
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PhysRevPhysEducRes.14.010142.pdf
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Univ Arizona, Dept AstronUniv Arizona, Dept Teaching Learning & Sociocultural Studies
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2018-06-15
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AMER PHYSICAL SOCCitation
Buxner, S. R., Impey, C. D., Romine, J., & Nieberding, M. (2018). Linking introductory astronomy students’ basic science knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, sources of information, and information literacy. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 14(1), 010142. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.14.010142Rights
Copyright © The Author(s). Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Astronomy Education Research.] We report on a study of almost 13 000 undergraduate students enrolled in introductory astronomy courses at the University of Arizona. From 1989 to 2016, students completed a basic science knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes survey. From 2014 to 2016, a subset of the sample completed an additional survey that probed their overall interest in science and astronomy, where they reported getting information about science, and their judgment of those sources. Our sample of mostly nonscience major students outperformed the general public on basic science knowledge questions during the time of the study. Additionally, there was very little change over the range of time of the study in students' basic science knowledge whose scores averaged around 79% correct over the 27 years. Students' self-reported demographic information and beliefs and attitudes in science and technology accounted for only 11% of the variance in their science knowledge scores and there was no systematic pattern between where students reported getting their information about science and their basic science knowledge. Despite this, there was a relationship between how students rated the reliability of sources and their science knowledge. Our findings support that introductory astronomy courses arc opportunities to improve students' attitudes towards science and ability to evaluate scientific information. Although this group of students' basic science knowledge and attitudes remained relatively unchanged over 27 years there was a measurable relationship between students' beliefs and attitudes, interest, science knowledge, and information literacy.Note
Open access journal.ISSN
2469-9896Version
Final published versionSponsors
National Science Foundation [1244799]Additional Links
https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.14.010142ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.14.010142
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Copyright © The Author(s). Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.