Quo Vadis astronomy (and physics!) education research?

Abstract

In the preface of Feynman’s Lectures on Physics, he confesses that “I don’t think I did very well by my students. When I look at the way the majority of students handled the problems on the examinations, I think the system is a failure.” I was flabbergasted when I reread that admission recently, because I had felt the same pessimism about my introductory astronomy classes. I suspect that many readers have explored that frustrated bleakness, too.