Introduction

Michigan State University (MSU) serves a large and diverse student population, ∼ 1000 of whom take the astronomy course for non- science majors each year. Significant resources are also invested in the related astronomy lab, enrolling about half the lecture students. Although this lab is optional, the students are required to complete one lab course for their degree. In the fall of 1995, we undertook an extensive assessment of student learning in these astronomy courses.

The Student Population

Unlilke most astronomy research, information about the entire population under study (403 students) was available. This included name, major, grade earned, and concurrent enrollment in lab and lecture. Fig. l(a) shows that the shapes of the grade distributions differ for the day and evening classes, and that neither is Gaussian. Therefore the day and evening classes will be analysed separately, and statistics such as mean and standard deviation are good descriptors for only the day-class students receiving a 1.0 lecture grade or above. The lab grades were also plotted for the day and evening classes separately, and no difference in the shapes of the distributions were apparent (Fig. l(b)). This indicates that the different grade distributions of the day and evening lectures are lecture-dependent, rather than rooted in the nature of the students taking day versus evening classes. The lecture and lab grades were also plotted for males versus females (gender information was not available for eleven students), and no gender bias was evident.