A Study of the Effectiveness of the Planetarium and the Classroom in the Teaching of Constellations

This study investigated three methods of teaching constellation recognition to different age groups. The treatments were: (1) teaching constellations in the classroom by means of 35mm slides of hand drawn constellation star fields, (2) teaching constellations in the planetarium by means of 35mm slides of hand drawn constellation star fields, and (3) teaching constellations by means of a planetarium sky, and the Ss represented three age categories: children, teenagers, and adults. The total number of Ss completing the study was 103. The results of the analysis indicated: (1) regardless of treatment all age groups performed approximately the same when evaluated under the real sky, (2) when evaluated by a paper and pencil instrument those Ss who were instructed under the planetarium sky scored significantly I lower than those receiving a treatment involving slides, and (3) the ~s receiving the slide treatment in the ' planetarium reported more positive responses to "the study of constellations than did the Ss receiving the other treatments.

Grantor dc:publisher

NSUWorks

Year dc:date

1974

Author dc:creator

• Smith, Theodore V.

• Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cps_stuetd/100

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:nsuworks.nova.edu:cps_stuetd-1101