After viewing the videos of the participants' responses, we compiled the following results:
We interviewed a total of 7 people.
~71% of the participants surveyed thought there was no gravity in space.
~29% of the participants surveyed had an incomplete perception of gravity in space.
Given that the results are based on a small number of participants, we can only make generalizations as to this population, however this data is still useful for the educational learning purposes about conceptual understanding.
We interviewed a total of 7 people.
~71% of the participants surveyed thought there was no gravity in space.
~29% of the participants surveyed had an incomplete perception of gravity in space.
Given that the results are based on a small number of participants, we can only make generalizations as to this population, however this data is still useful for the educational learning purposes about conceptual understanding.
After interviewing a variety of people, we found that there is indeed a misconception about the concept of gravity in space. We carefully listened to everyone try to explain why there is no gravity in space, and although many explanations were incorrect, most people were able to grasp certain concepts about gravity. People think of gravity in terms of noticeably being pulled towards something, so if they don't observe this (i.e. pictures from space), they think there's no gravity there. Hearing the many different explanations leads us to believe that because gravity is not a concrete object or something we can see, that most people struggle with understanding what it is.