ANALYSING EDUCATION AS A VARIABLE IN “THE SKY IN OUR LIVES SURVEY”

Abstract

“The Sky in Our Lives” is a survey that was created in 2006 by Dr. Jarita Holbrook and has been modified and improved since then to more accurately capture the relationship between people living today and the night sky (Holbrook, 2009). The survey is broken down into 5 parts: Part I “Demographic Information” deals with the demographic information of the respondents, Part II “The Sky in your life” section explores how people use the sky in their everyday life or have used the sky in the past, for example using the stars for night navigation. Part III with little modification, this section is the Noctcaelador Inventory developed by psychologist William E. Kelly (Kelly, 2004). This part of the survey tests a person’s psychological attachment to the sky. Part IV “Astrology” this survey part is to test a person’s belief in astrology. The final part which is Part V is to test a person’s attitude towards astronomy. This section incorporates part of the Astronomy Attitude Survey developed by Michael Zeilik (Zeilik, 2002). The greater the educational attainment, the more positive the attitude towards astronomy & science (part V), the less a belief in astrology (part IV), and a higher psychological attachment to the night sky (part III).