COASTRO: @N ASTRONOMY CONDO – TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL BELIEFS TOWARDS SCIENCE IN A CITIZEN SCIENCE PROJECT

Abstract

An attitude is seen as a hypothetical construct related to a tendency expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour. In the case of attitudes toward science, these cannot be isolated from understanding science’s processes: the path to produce, refute, and change knowledge. Thus, it is critical to promote public engagement with science-astronomy and technology with the goal of understanding content, but also of understanding what science is and how it is built. In this context, CoAstro: @n Astronomy Condo emerged –a citizen science project starts with the engagement of primaryschool teachers with the Research Group on the “Origin and Evolution of Stars and Planets”at the Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço (IA). A semi-structured interview was conducted to study teachers' attitudes and epistemological beliefs towards science and the changes promoted by CoAstro. The interview was performed before and after the development of the CoAstro. It involved nine primary school teachers with no degree in science and who volunteered to participate in CoAstro. The results show that there has been an increase of interest in astronomy and the reinforcement of epistemological beliefs.