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Making space for scale
Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3070-567x
Umeå University, Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Science and Mathematics Education.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9409-3559
Uppsala universitet, Uppsala, Sverige.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-6638-1246
2025 (English)Conference paper, Oral presentation only (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Our project investigate how pre-service teachers and science experts (space physicists, chemists and biologists) engage with spatial scale reasoning through epistemic games - structured approaches to scientific inquiry and problem-solving. Spatial thinking is foundational to STEM success, yet understanding scales beyond direct human experience remains challenging for many learners (Tretter et al. 2006; Eriksson et al. 2014).Our studies involve four groups: primary school pre-service teachers, chemists, biologists and space physicists. Each group participates in a four-part game-based activity: arranging large astronomical objects by size, adding a human figure for scale reference, repeating the process with microscopic objects, and explaining their reasoning to a novice. Video recordings were analyzed using thematic analysis.We identified three major themes of epistemic games: Cognitive Anchoring, Object Relatedness, and Perspectives.While pre-service teachers employed similar epistemic games as science experts, they demonstrated unique engagement through pedagogical expertise, particularly in contextual perspectives. However, they made more errors with microscopic objects despite using similar reasoning strategies. This suggests that while epistemic games provide valuable reasoning tools, their effectiveness depends on underlying conceptual knowledge.Our findings have implications for teacher preparation programs and science programs, highlighting the need to strengthen both conceptual frameworks and strategic reasoning about spatial scales. This research contributes to understanding how future astronomy and science educators develop the spatial thinking skills that research has established as critical predictors of STEM success and scientific literacy in contexts ranging from the smallest to the largest structures known.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2025.
Keywords [en]
Spatial scale, spatial cognition, astronomy education research
National Category
Other Physics Topics Didactics
Research subject
Physics with specialization in Physics Education
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-245675OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-245675DiVA, id: diva2:2007418
Conference
Astronomy Education, Melbourne, Australia, September 23-25, 2025
Funder
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, PH2024-0024Available from: 2025-10-20 Created: 2025-10-20 Last updated: 2025-10-20Bibliographically approved

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Samuelsson, Christopher RobinHellgren, JennyEriksson, Urban

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • vancouver
  • Other style
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Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
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Output format
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  • asciidoc
  • rtf