Development of an Instrument for Assessing Basic Astronomy Knowledge in the Brazilian Educational Context
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22600/1518-8795.ienci2024v29n2p539Keywords:
Astronomy Education, Assessment and Validation of Tests, Levels of Knowledge in Astronomy, Semi-Quantitative Methodologies of Statistical AnalysisAbstract
In this work, we present the results of a process of adapting a research instrument developed to measure the level of basic astronomy knowledge among the Brazilian population. This instrument, called “Test of Levels of Knowledge in Astronomy” (TNCA), was developed in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and, therefore, was organized and disseminated in the form of an electronic form to the 57 students and teachers who participated in this research. The TNCA consists of the translation and adaptation of all 27 multiple-choice questions contained in the Test of Astronomy Standards (TOAST), the result of over 20 years of research, developed, validated, and consolidated by the Center for Astronomy & Physics Education Research, a renowned research center in Astronomy Education in the United States. The changes made to the original items are due not only to the linguistic peculiarities of the Portuguese language but also to the specificity of the sky observed from the southern hemisphere of our planet and, particularly, the Brazilian geographical and educational context. The TNCA was made available and distributed digitally to three different groups composed of high school students, Physics undergraduates, and Physics teachers, and the research corpus was analyzed according to the Classical Test Theory. This analysis allowed us to compare the conceptions observed in our test with both the results of the original instrument and the results of research in Astronomy Education. Our results showed a strong compatibility between the validation indexes and indicators of the items obtained on TOAST and TNCA, with the identification of specific problems in only 4 of the 27 questions analyzed. Thus, after the analysis, we adapted the four questions identified with lower validation potential to consolidate the final version of the TNCA. This new version is presented as a promising instrument for future application on a statistically significant scale aiming at its validation as an assessment tool for basic Astronomy knowledge in physics and astronomy education contexts in Brazil.References
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Copyright (c) 2024 Marcos Paulo de Araújo Silva, Carlos Eduardo Porto Andrade, Carlos Eduardo Porto Villani
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