A Study on Misconceptions of Astronomy for Teachers of Elementary School:A Case Study of the Moon and Stars Lessons

• Main Authors: Che-Cheng Chang, 張哲誠
• Other Authors: Cheng,Hong-Wen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/y47tq8

碩士 === 國立臺北教育大學 === 自然科學教育學系 === 102 === Astronomy classroom activities are usually attractive to elementary school pupils. As exploring astronomical phenomena, the pupils may have their doubts. Yet, not only students but teachers have difficulties in explaining basic astronomical phenomena(Baxter, 1989; Dai & Capie, 1990) This research aimed to develop a two-tier diagnostic test about stars and the moon units to reveal the misconceptions that elementary school teachers have in the convergence of the Earth and the universe viewpoints. The main objectives are: (1) to investigate the misconceived types and distribution of elementary school teachers in terms of stars and the moon; (2) to explore the differences under various conditions including academic background, science teaching experience, seniority of teaching science, having taught the stars or the moon lessons with the aid of the two-tier diagnostic instrument. In this study, the two-tier diagnostic instrument, invented by Treagust (1986), is developed into a three stages 14 steps. For the development of two-tier diagnostic tool, the misconceptions of starts and the moon from elementary school teacher via designed semi-open questionnaires is collected as a basic concept. The formal test took elementary school teachers in north part ofTTaiwan as participants and obtained 173 valid questionnaires. The statistical methods, such as descriptive statistics, T-tests, are used to analyze those questionnaires. That leads to the following conclusions: (1) Teacher have many misconceptions about the concepts of "astrological observation", "moving star", "moon spectacle", "revolution and rotation of the Moon" and "moon phase, date and location". (2) The most misconception type is non-conception type with wrong answer in two-tier questions, followed by the type first tier is correct and the second tier is incorrect, the least type is that the second tier is correct and the first tier is incorrect (3) The two-tier diagnostic test scores have no much difference from different academic backgrounds, but experience in teaching science influence test scores. (4) There is a significant difference in scores from teachers with varying experience in teaching science. The more experience the better score. (5) Science teachers who have taught "stars" unit or not does not make significant difference in the "stars" part scores of two-tier diagnostic test. (6) Science teachers who have taught "moon" unit or not does not make significant difference in the "moon" part scores of two-tier diagnostic test. (7) There is no much difference between science teachers who have taught "moon" or "stars" units or not. After in-depth analysis found that the experience in teaching science is proportional to the score. Science teachers who have over six years experience have higher score and less misconception. Suggested that schools should arrange regular science teachers. (8) The novice science teachers with mathematical background have more proper astronomical conception.