The field of astronomy education is rapidly growing beyond merely sharing effective
activities or curriculum ideas. This paper categorizes and summarizes the literature in …

This article describes the development and validation of the Light and Spectroscopy
Concept Inventory (LSCI), a 26-item diagnostic test designed (1) to measure students' …

We present the results of a national study on the teaching and learning of astronomy as
taught in general education, non-science-major, introductory astronomy courses. Nearly …

Teaching and learning astronomy in the 21st century Page 1 You’re lecturing to your
introductory college astronomy class about Newton’s law of gravitation. You’ve carefully explained …

Two motivational factors—self-efficacy and interest—may be especially relevant to
deepening students' understanding of astronomy. We examined the relationship between …

Stars are one of the most frequently covered topics in introductory astronomy classes. From
a constructivist framework, one must know what conceptions students bring with them to the …

Concept inventories (CIs)—typically multiple-choice instruments that focus on a single or
small subset of closely related topics—have been used in science education for more than a …

Although astronomy topics have been included in K-12 education research for decades,
astronomy education research as a field of discipline-based education research is relatively …

This study (Note 1) investigated the beliefs about stars that students hold when they enter an
undergraduate introductory astronomy course for nonscience majors. Students' …

This is the final paper in a five-paper series describing our national study of the teaching and
learning of cosmology in general education astronomy college-level courses. A significant …