Astronomy education research – why, what & how?

Photo by Jeremy Müller from Pexels, edited with Canva

I look forward to kicking off a new seminar series later this month, run through the International Capacity-Building in Astronomy Education Research (ICAER) project.

Similar to physics education research (PER), astronomy education research (AER) sits at a crossroads: between astronomy, discipline-based educational research, and the broader social sciences. This makes AER exciting – but also a bit daunting 😉

My goal is to make the field a bit less daunting by discussing the relevance of AER and what it takes to understand the aims, scope, and methods of the field – without necessarily being a professional researcher yourself. I take my point of departure from ICAER, which aims to map how students around the world think and feel about astronomy. ICAER is coordinated through the IAU's Office of Astronomy for Education, and as one of the project’s co-leads, I’ll also talk about the motivation to establish a community of astronomy educators trained in research methods.

However, the seminar is open to everyone – whether or not you're part of ICAER – and it will be recorded for later viewing. Hope to see you there 🙂