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ERIC Number: EJ993845
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0950-0693
EISSN: N/A
A Study of General Education Astronomy Students' Understandings of Cosmology. Part V. The Effects of a New Suite of Cosmology "Lecture-Tutorials" on Students' Conceptual Knowledge
Wallace, Colin S.; Prather, Edward E.; Duncan, Douglas K.
International Journal of Science Education, v34 n9 p1297-1314 2012
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 portion of this work was dedicated to the development of five new "Lecture-Tutorials" that focus on addressing the conceptual and reasoning difficulties that our research shows students have with frequently taught cosmology topics, such as the expansion of the universe, the Big Bang, and dark matter. We conducted a systematic investigation of the implementation of these new "Lecture-Tutorials" and resulting learning gains in order to test the efficacy of these new "Lecture-Tutorials." Our investigation included classroom observations, results from pre-post testing using four conceptual cosmology surveys, and comparisons between classes in terms of the class time spent on cosmology topics and other instructional strategies used to teach cosmology. We used this combination of qualitative and quantitative research results to evaluate the conceptual understandings of students who used the new cosmology "Lecture-Tutorials" compared to those students who did not. The analysis of our data shows that, in many cases, classrooms that used the cosmology "Lecture-Tutorials" saw a greater increase in their students' conceptual cosmology knowledge compared to classrooms that did not use the cosmology "Lecture-Tutorials." However, our results also indicate how instructors implement the "Lecture-Tutorials" into their classrooms strongly influences their students' learning gains. (Contains 2 tables and 4 figures.) [For Part IV, see EJ971054.]
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A