A Study on Identifying the Misconceptions of Pre-service and In-service Teachers about Basic Astronomy Concepts

Uygar Kanli

doi:10.12973/eurasia.2014.1120a

Abstract

Nowadays, the importance given to astronomy teaching in science and physics education has been gradually increasing. At the same time, teachers play an important role in remediating the misconceptions about astronomy concepts held by students. The present study aims to determine the misconceptions of pre-service physics teachers (n=117), pre-service science teachers (n=97) and in-service physics teachers (n=174) about astronomy concepts using a three-tier test. The Astronomy Concept and Achievement Test (ACAT), developed by Trumper (2001a, 2001b, 2006), was adapted as a three-tier instrument and used as the data collection instrument. The first tier, first and second tier and all three tier responses that were obtained from the ACAT were analyzed separately to identify misconceptions and to evaluate the respondents‟ achievement. The results showed that the achievement scores of pre-service and in-service teachers considerably decreased when the third tier was considered. In addition, when the misconceptions of pre-service and in-service teachers were determined using all three tiers, they held extensive misconceptions especially about the reasons for seasons, the Moon‟s phases, the Moon‟s phase in the solar eclipse and the Sun‟s position in the sky.

Highlights

Since 4000 B.C., astronomy has always been involved in the center of “nature-human” relationships, and for that reason, astronomy is accepted to be one of the oldest disciplines
The results presented here show that physics teachers as well as pre-service science and physics teachers have misconceptions about basic astronomy concepts
A descriptive statistical analysis was conducted in an attempt to analyze misconceptions and achievement with three-tier test

Summary

Introduction

Since 4000 B.C., astronomy has always been involved in the center of “nature-human” relationships, and for that reason, astronomy is accepted to be one of the oldest disciplines. It is seen that developments in astronomy are closely related with other fields such as physics, chemistry, geology and mathematics. Observing and analyzing the movement of planets have made an important contribution to expressing the law U.Kanli. The importance of astronomy teaching has been gradually increasing in science education in recent years. It is emphasized that students from different levels and pre-service teachers have a number of misconceptions about even the basic concepts of astronomy. There are limited studies that evaluate the beliefs, experiences, understanding and misconceptions of teachers about basic astronomy. There are disadvantages of using multiple-choice tests to identify the misconceptions. Two-tier and three-tier tests have been used in determining misconceptions about various concepts in recent years

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Conclusion