Using astronomical photographs to investigate misconceptions about galaxies and spectra: Question development for clicker use

Hyunju Lee,Stephen E Schneider

doi:10.1103/physrevstper.11.020101

Abstract

Many topics in introductory astronomy at the college or high-school level rely implicitly on using astronomical photographs and visual data in class. However, students bring many preconceptions to their understanding of these materials that ultimately lead to misconceptions, and research about students' interpretation of astronomical images has been scarcely conducted. In this study we probed college students' understanding of astronomical photographs and visual data about galaxies and spectra, and developed a set of concept questions based on their common misconceptions. The study was conducted mainly in three successive surveys: 1) open-ended questions looking for students' ideas and common misconceptions, 2) combined multiple-choice and open-ended questions seeking to explore student reasoning and to improve concept questions for clickers, and 3) a finalized version of the concept questions used to investigate the strength of each misconception among the students in introductory astronomy courses. This study reports on the procedures and the development of the concept questions with the investigated common misconceptions about galaxies and spectra. We also provide the set of developed questions for teachers and instructors seeking to implement in their classes for the purpose of formative assessment with the use of classroom response systems. These questions would help them recognize the gap between their teaching and students' understanding, and ultimately improve teaching of the concepts.

Highlights

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has produced thousands of remarkable photographic images over the past 20 years
Based on the findings of a series of surveys to uncover misconceptions, we developed multiple-choice concept questions that are applicable to introductory astronomy courses or USING ASTRONOMICAL PHOTOGRAPHS TO
Based on the findings we developed 38 concept questions, whose answer choices were all constructed from the common misconceptions and that would be useful in introductory astronomy courses

Summary

Introduction

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has produced thousands of remarkable photographic images over the past 20 years. The HST images have had an important role in providing valuable scientific information to astrophysicists. In science classrooms, they are often used to attract students’ attention to the beauty of the Universe or to illustrate celestial phenomena, but students often have little guidance about how to examine astronomical images as data or how to interpret them. Students often gain the impression that galaxies are far more dense than they are in reality, they have little understanding of galaxy sizes and separations, and they misinterpret colors (sometimes false colors) in the images. We investigate how college students interpret photographic images of galaxies across the electromagnetic spectrum and we seek to understand their misconceptions. We developed concept questions that may be used with clickers in an introductory astronomy course to illuminate how students misinterpret

Methods

Results

Conclusion