The Problem Introductory Astronomy for non-majors ("Astro 101") is taught around the country. Students, however, tend to "tune out" unless they view the material as personally meaningful, relevant or useful to them. Astronomers have no trouble seeing connections and links between the course material and life outside class, but there seems to be remarkably little research exploring whether students see these relationships. Much work has been done on general attitudes towards astronomy as an example of a science , but no surveys that I'm aware of have explored perceptions of the relevance of various specific aspects of astronomy. Example of existing work: "Survey of Attitudes Towards Astronomy" (SATA; Zeilik & Morris 2003) survey, which probes very general views on the relevance and worth of astronomy and science (9 items), along with measuring positive / negative attitudes about science and astronomy (8 items), attitudes about the students' cognitive competence in astronomy (9 items), and attitudes about the difficulty of astronomy and science as subjects (8 items). Each semester at UW-La Crosse, about 60-90 students of all levels and all disciplines (although mostly non-science) take one of two versions of "Astro 101": "Solar System Astronomy" and "Stars, Galaxies & the Universe". I am developing a survey about attitudes towards the relevance of astronomy to give to these General Education astronomy students at the beginning of the course, and again at the end. The primary goal is to identify students' views at the beginning of the course, but I also hope to monitor whether any changes occur during my current version of the course, and whether student attitudes are related to their conceptual gains of astronomy content in the course. Summer 2008

Evidence of Student Learning & Methods of Analysis At the beginning and end of my General Education astronomy course in the spring, I administered survey about attitudes towards relevance to my Gen Ed astronomy students. I'm most interested in the 'initial state', but also want to explore any potential changes. I designed the attitudes survey and piloted it on several students (not in my class) during Fall 2008, gaining informal feedback. The survey used in Spring 2009 is here. I intend to explore how the responses vary with gender, major field, etc. I also administered content-based pre/post tests (Star Properties Concept Inventory) at the beginning and end of the course. This will allow me to correlate content knowledge (both incoming and gains) to the attitudes about relevance. Aspects of Relevance: whether / how they anticipate connecting course material to news items / popular portrayals of astronomy whether they're aware of technological spinoffs (e.g. CCD chips in digital cameras etc.) do they connect material like 'Phases of the Moon' do their life outside class? are there any skills they expect to develop in class that might help them elsewhere in their life Spring 2009

Project Summary This project focuses on the views of students as they enter a General Education course in Introductory Astronomy. Education research suggests that students are more likely to engage with material and retain concepts if they feel the material has relevance in their lives. By relevance, I mean "connections / links to life outside class - personal, future careers, media, society". The objective of this project is to explore the links / connections students see between astronomy class and their lives outside that class, as well as how the students' views of relevance correlate to their content knowledge in the course. The results will allow instructors to better 'meet students where they are', and encourage them to engage with the course material. Ongoing

Annotated List of Helpful Resources & References Bailey, J. 2007, "Development of a Concept Inventory to Assess Students' Understanding and Reasoning Difficulties about the Properties and Formation of Stars", Astronomy Education Review, 6(2), 133-139 http://aer.noao.edu/cgi-bin/article.pl?id=245 Benefits to the Nation from Astronomy and Astrophysics From "Working Papers: Astronomy and Astrophysics Panel Reports" Limited discussion of student attitudes towards astronomy & science Astronomers' perspective on relevance of field Gay, Price, & Searle, 2007. “Astronomy Podcasting: A Low-cost Tool for Affecting Attitudes in Diverse Audiences”, Astronomy Education Review, 5(1), 36-52 http://aer.noao.edu/cgi-bin/article.pl?id=192 Podcast listeners described increased interest in astronomy after they began listening to astro-related podcasts. Hemenway et al. 2002, "Educational Research in an Introductory Astronomy Course”, Innovative Higher Ed., 26, 271-280 Texas Attitudes Survey (very general - only a few items address "relevance") Most items didn't change at significant level across semester Zeilik, M. & Morris, V.J. 2003, “An Examination of Misconceptions in an Astronomy Course for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Majors”, Astronomy Education Review, 2(1), 101-119 http://aer.noao.edu/cgi-bin/article.pl?id=47 Survey of Attitudes Toward Astronomy (SATA; 9 items on relevance / worth of astronomy & science in general) Zeilik, Schau & Mattern, 1999. "Conceptual Astronomy: Replicating conceptual gains, probing attitude changes across 3 semesters”, Am. J. Phys., 67, 923-927 Attitudes (SATA) typically don't change across the semester Ongoing

Preliminary Results, Findings, Conclusions, & Implications First-day surveys and SPCI results have been explored for themes and trends. Click on links for details. Compilation of Open-Ended Responses from the pre-course survey given Spring 2009. Results of SPCI (pre-test) Spring 2009[Mean = 36&#37] Preliminary Statistics for Questions 6-10 (frequency of encountering aspects of astronomy) and Questions 11-22 (Strongly Agree --> Strongly Disagree with statements relating to relevance of astronomy), from the pre-course survey given Spring 2009. TRENDS IN PRE-COURSE DATA: (click for link to plots) Importance of Astronomy: Overall, student incoming attitudes towards the importance of astronomy are generally quite positive Students generally rated “I like / would enjoy…” questions quite positively Only one item had a mean below neutral (mean = 2.92, Std. Dev. = 0.84) Factor analysis suggests all 12 items are well-described by two dimensions: (1) Sharing/Using Astronomy & (2) Personal Enjoyment of Astronomy Both factors significantly related to "Reason for Taking Course" Neither related to issues like how well students could see night sky as children Frequency of Encountering / Noticing Astronomy: Significantly (but weakly) associated with both SPCI Pretest Score and Personal Enjoyment score Students who enjoy astronomy are also those who are more aware of its presence in their lives These same students also tend to score more highly on the SPCI Pre-test SPCI Pretest Score: Significantly correlated with Personal Enjoyment Score Students who score more highly on Personal Enjoyment also scored higher on the SPCI Pre-test Marginally significant relationship between SPCI Pretest Score and Formal Background in Astronomy Students who score more highly on the SPCI pre-test also tend to have had more formal training in astronomy COMPARING PRE & POST DATA: (click for link to plots) Change in Attitudes during course: Importance of Astronomy: Factor analysis reveals that the Sharing/Enjoyment factors which describe the Pre-course data are not appropriate to the Post-course data No significant changes in most individual items of “I like/would enjoy…” questions, or in mean of items: Marginally significant (p = 0.07) decrease in appreciation of astronomy-related book or equipment as a present (Change = 0.3) How often students notice / encounter Astronomy: Significant (positive) changes were found in how often students reported encountering “aspects of astronomy” (p = 0.068), encountering items/technology originally developed for studying astronomy (p = 0.01) and using general skills that astronomers apply in their research to make decisions in their life outside of class (p = 0.034), as well as in the median of all similar items (p = 0.033) Relationship of Incoming Attitudes to Performance in Course: No significant relationship to performance gains on SPCI, or course grade Marginally significant trend (p = 0.068): students scoring highly on the Pre-enjoyment factor obtained a higher course grade. Students who scored highly on the Pre-sharing factor had greater gains in content as measured by the SPCI (p = 0.033) FURTHER WORK: Open-ended responses from both the Initial and Final Surveys need to be systematically analyzed for themes Complete detailed exploration of survey data for any relationship between attitudes and background or demographics. Based on the results from Spring 2009, the survey has been modified and been administered to the Fall 2009 "Solar System Astronomy" class, along with an appropriate concept inventory. Results will be analyzed. Ongoing

Career Relevance & Impact The WTFS Program has been a wonderful experience. I've been interested in Astronomy SoTL for some time, having attended related sessions at Astronomy meetings. This program allowed me to focus and get started on my first SoTL project. The flexibility of the program allowed me to change my focus several times until I settled on a project. As a Physics person, I hadn't thought much about the affective domain of student learning prior to Faculty College last May. Exploring this domain in my students' learning is proving to be an eye-opening experience, that I expect will affect my teaching from now on. I could never have undertaken a project on the affective domain without the support and assistance of the many WTFS program participants from various disciplines. In particular, my group gave me wonderful advice. I would like to especially thank Barb Bennie from the UW-L Statistical Consulting Center for her help in analyzing my survey. Ongoing