The introductory astronomy course at the University of Cape Town: probing student perspectives

TL;DR

This study developed and used the Introductory Astronomy Questionnaire to assess student motivation, content understanding, and worldview changes, revealing learning gains and positive attitude shifts in a diverse university course.

Contribution

The paper introduces the IAQ instrument and demonstrates its effectiveness in measuring student perspectives and learning outcomes in an introductory astronomy course.

Findings

Students showed conceptual learning gains.

Students developed a more nuanced view of astronomy.

The course positively influenced students' attitudes towards science.

Abstract

We report on research carried out to improve teaching and student engagement in the introductory astronomy course at the University of Cape Town. This course is taken by a diverse range of students, including many from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. We describe the development of an instrument, the Introductory Astronomy Questionnaire (IAQ), which we administered as pre- and post-tests to students enrolled in the course. The instrument comprised a small number of questions which probed three areas of interest: student motivation and expectations, astronomy content, and worldview. Amongst our findings were that learning gains were made in several conceptual areas, and that students appeared to develop a more nuanced view of the nature of astronomy. There was some evidence that the course had a positive impact on students' worldviews, particularly their attitudes towards science. We also identified a promising predictor of course success that could in future be used to identify students requiring special teaching intervention.