Shaping Attitudes Toward Science in an Introductory Astronomy Class

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that targeted activities in a general-education astronomy course can significantly improve students' attitudes toward science, contrasting with declines often seen in physics courses.

Contribution

It introduces a new attitude survey and classroom interventions that effectively enhance science attitudes in non-science majors taking astronomy.

Findings

Significant improvement in students' science attitudes

Contrast with stagnation in physics courses

Potential explanations for attitude change differences

Abstract

At many universities, astronomy is a popular way for non-science majors to fulfill a general education requirement. Because general-education astronomy may be the only college-level science course taken by these students, it is the last chance to shape the science attitudes of these future journalists, teachers, politicians, and voters. I report on an attempt to measure and induce changes in science attitudes in my general-education astronomy course. I describe construction of the attitude survey, classroom activities designed to influence attitudes, and give numerical results indicating a significant improvement. In contrast, the literature on attitudes in introductory physics courses generally reports stagnation or decline. I briefly comment on some plausible explanations for this difference.