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Misconceptions that students bring with them to the introductory science classroom plague every area of science and are especially prevalent in astronomy. One way to identify and possibly dispel some of these misconceptions is through the use of a misconceptions survey. The following is a report on the development, implementation, and some early results of the use of an Astronomical Misconceptions Survey. The survey was developed on the basis of previous research on common misconceptions in astronomy and used in sections of introductory college astronomy to identify which misconceptions were more and less prevalent among students and how effectively some of the misconceptions could be dispelled by various teaching methods. (Contains 3 tables and 6 figures.)

The beginning of a typical solar system "unit" in a traditional introductory astronomy course often consists of an overview of the different object types--planets, moons, and debris (asteroids, comets, and meteors), and now also Pluto's home, the Kuiper belt--prior to coverage of formation and more detail about the various object types. An important distinction that needs to be made prior to coverage of solar system formation or discussions of individual planets is between the two planet types: the Earth-like or "terrestrial" planets, and the Jupiter-like or "Jovian" planets. The following is a description of an activity designed to establish these categories through conclusions drawn by students after a guided analysis of planetary data.

The idea of sending students and the general public on a walk through a scale model of the solar system in an attempt to instill an appreciation of the relative scales of the sizes of the objects compared to the immense distances between them is certainly not new. A good number of such models exist, including one on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., starting at the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. A pioneering model and inspiration for our own is on the campus of the University of Colorado in Boulder, and there are others. Those at science museums are often used by the general public and field-trip groups, while the ones on college campuses are also used by students of introductory astronomy.

The Star Properties Concept Inventory (SPCI) is among the first instruments made available to assess student gains in a major section or "unit" of a traditional introductory astronomy course, in this case the unit on stars. This is in contrast to instruments for an entire course, such as the Astronomy Diagnostic Test or the Lunar Phases Concept Inventory that is for a single subject. One of the intended uses of the SPCI is for comparison of the effectiveness of different instructional methods. The following is a report on the results of a study in which the SPCI was used as a pretest and post test to compare gains in active and collaborative student-centered instruction using lecture tutorials to those in traditional instructor-centered instruction. (Contains 5 notes and 2 figures.)