Students' understanding of Universe birth and evolution

A coherent picture of high school students conceptual understanding of cosmology is yet to be provided. To this aim, we conducted a survey on a convenience sample of 432 Italian high school students. The students responses to an open-ended questionnaire were analysed with a non-hierarchical cluster analysis, using SPSS K-means algorithm. In this study we could identify patterns amongst students beliefs and ideas. Our preliminary findings may guide the design of meaningful and more effective teaching activities to improve students understanding of this content area.