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[Phys-L] Astronomy misconception test in Physics Today



Hi all,



there is a potentially useful paper in the August issue of the PT. It deals
with misconceptions in astronomy education. It is not the first such
instrument but there seems to be some merit in the approach taken by the
authors (e.g., they use IRT to validate the instrument). One may complain
about the use of the notion of misconception as it seems to be gradually
phasing out from the SciEduc and PER circles. A more important issue is how
to teach astronomy or physics in the first place: the authors test one
approach and report that the order of presentation had no effect at all.



The paper is freely available here:
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/article/69/8/10.1
063/PT.3.3277. The list of sample misconceptions appears to be easy to
answer but you'll never know before you make your students try them. All the
215 statements (astronomy misconceptions addressed in this study) are
available here: see the Appendix:
http://jraeo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/JRAEO010101A21AFetal.pdf



Regards,



Antti Savinainen, PhD

Finland