Abstract

Understanding how science is learned is of major national interest through the STEM initiatives. Astronomy learning falls in that category. Introductory Astronomy courses are usually offered as general education courses to promote an understanding of science and to provoke students’ interests and pursuing of a related career. In this study, we evaluated the course materials of an online introductory astronomy course in terms of their level of engagement. We also measured students’ motivation and attitude toward astronomy while using the course materials. In the presentation, we will share our findings of students’ motivational reactions to the instructional materials, and their relationships with students’ attitude toward Astronomy. We will then make recommendations for revising the course materials based on of the findings to improve the motivational aspects of the course materials. Implications for designing engaging web-based courses with large enrollment will also be drawn.

Citation

Ching, Y.h., Kapli, N., Nguyen, H., DILEO, M., Lim, K.Y., Yung, H.I., Grabowski, B. & Miller, S. (2008). Designing Engaging Web-based General Science Courses for Undergraduate Education. In C. Bonk, M. Lee & T. Reynolds (Eds.), Proceedings of E-Learn 2008--World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education (p. 1524). Las Vegas, Nevada, USA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved August 9, 2024 from https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/29853/.

© 2008 Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)

Keywords

• Instructional Materials
• web-based course