Eva Trnová
I am senior lecture on Faculty of Education, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. I am interested in natural science education, innovative educational methods and education of gifted students.
Address: Czech Republic
Address: Czech Republic
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Based on a multi-level analysis of skills on the levels of the intended, realised, and achieved curriculum, the main purpose of this project was to propose a comprehensive system of skills which students should master at the end of the 5th and 9th year of elementary school (primary and lower secondary level of education) and the 4th year of gymnasium (upper secondary education). There was a strong effort to fulfil component research goals with the aid of identical approaches and methods in order to allow a comparability of results across all of the analysed subjects. The research design is based on the principle of mutually interconnected research and the creation of a multi-level curriculum. It is a model which represents the various forms of the curriculum in a manner which makes it easier to study via either qualitative or quantitative methods.
In the initial phase, an entirely new structure of skills has been proposed for the given subjects, which evolves according to the students’ age, from the first and second elementary school level all the way to the level of gymnasiums. The principle of information selection and sorting (a general problem solving cycle) was chosen in order to correspond to the inquiry based learning currently preferred in modern science education. For the relevant student age categories in all three subjects, the required skills have been structured into four or five skill sets: questions in natural science, information gathering from various sources (text, maps, tables, graphs, figures, diagrams, etc.), information organization, evaluation of outputs, formation of conclusions. In the next phase, the proposed overview of skills was subjected to three surveys (one for each subject) addressed to teachers at the 1st and 2nd elementary school levels and at the gymnasiums, as well as to university pedagogues. The analysis of their responses represents one of the foundations for the correction of the first draft of the skill system proposal and allows for an observation of disparities in opinion by the pedagogues at different levels of the educational system.
The third phase of the project consisted in the testing of partial skills from the aforementioned skillsets on students aged 10−11, and (separately for each subject area) 14−15 and 17−18 years, at both the 2nd level of elementary school (lower secondary level) and at gymnasiums. Simultaneously, we have created a survey for teachers and students, in order to successfully put the students’ test results into context. The outputs of structured interviews with 27 randomly selected teachers with varying approbations and lengths of experience also formed an important source of information used for an adjustment of our original proposals.
The structure and content of the monograph corresponds with the phases of the research project. The first two chapters have an introductory character and frame the topic of skills in its wider context. The following sections then present the outputs of the individual research phases, divided by subjects. The concluding seventh chapter compares and discusses the acquired results for biology, geography, and chemistry. Tests and surveys created and used as part of the project are available in the appendix.
The comparison of results across disciplines, conducted during the final stage, allows for a deeper insight into the formation and structuring of subject-relevant skills, as well as into the process of their implementation. We have selected several findings from this part of the research. From the comparison of the opinions of teachers from various levels of the educational system, analysed through the Kruskal-Wallis median test, and the Analysis of variance (ANOVA), it can be concluded that:
In principle, the newly proposed structure of skills in biology, geography and chemistry is accepted by teachers from all levels of the education system. This agreement, however, is very rough, since the internal heterogeneity of the observed items is considerable and the nature of the compared disciplines (subjects) is rather different. The results primarily indicate that there is a broad consensus among the teachers of biology, geography and chemistry in terms of the research-based attitude as a whole, while not so much on the specific skills representing the given categories. The fact that each respondent considered the specific skills first and the outputs were subsequently aggregated into “macro-categories” related to research effort results in considerable discrepancies between the opinions voiced by academics and those held by teachers in primary and secondary schools, as well as differences between the individual disciplines. Geographers approached as part of the survey show the highest level of heterogeneity in their opinions. The explanation to this can likely be found in the complex nature of this scientific discipline when compared to the “purely natural scientific” disciplines of chemistry and biology. This fact also increases the heterogeneity of categories which include both natural-scientific and social-scientific skills. This is naturally also reflected in the diversity of opinions. This could lead to a presumption that biology and chemistry have a much closer relationship in terms of their scientific character; however occasional statistically significant variation in opinions between teachers of chemistry and biology reveals that this assertion is far from straightforward.
The proposed skills from all four main skillsets are mostly accepted by both practicing pedagogues and academics of all disciplines. Certain categories, however, show differences in the preferences across the separate levels of the educational system, which indicates a need to adjust the expectation on the developed skills to the relevant educational stage.
The results of the testing of students of various ages demonstrated that their level of internalization of the assessed skills is relatively good. Nevertheless, there appear to be discrepancies between the individual skillsets. The skillset concerned with the asking of scientific question comes off as the least developed. The ability to form conclusion, on the other hand, emerges as the strongest. Further research is necessary in this direction in order to determine the level of achievement of all partial skills in the individual skillsets.
Several obstacles to more successful implementation of the proposed structure of skills emerge from the comparison of the testimonies of the 27 interviewed teachers. These include, for example, a certain barrier in communication through an unclear definition of skills or approach to teaching, when the skills apply to teachers and not students. It also appears that one of the deciding factors in the weak presence of the topic of skills in education is the relative difficulty in the assessment of skills, when compared with the assessment of knowledge.
Based on a multi-level analysis of skills on the levels of the intended, realised, and achieved curriculum, the main purpose of this project was to propose a comprehensive system of skills which students should master at the end of the 5th and 9th year of elementary school (primary and lower secondary level of education) and the 4th year of gymnasium (upper secondary education). There was a strong effort to fulfil component research goals with the aid of identical approaches and methods in order to allow a comparability of results across all of the analysed subjects. The research design is based on the principle of mutually interconnected research and the creation of a multi-level curriculum. It is a model which represents the various forms of the curriculum in a manner which makes it easier to study via either qualitative or quantitative methods.
In the initial phase, an entirely new structure of skills has been proposed for the given subjects, which evolves according to the students’ age, from the first and second elementary school level all the way to the level of gymnasiums. The principle of information selection and sorting (a general problem solving cycle) was chosen in order to correspond to the inquiry based learning currently preferred in modern science education. For the relevant student age categories in all three subjects, the required skills have been structured into four or five skill sets: questions in natural science, information gathering from various sources (text, maps, tables, graphs, figures, diagrams, etc.), information organization, evaluation of outputs, formation of conclusions. In the next phase, the proposed overview of skills was subjected to three surveys (one for each subject) addressed to teachers at the 1st and 2nd elementary school levels and at the gymnasiums, as well as to university pedagogues. The analysis of their responses represents one of the foundations for the correction of the first draft of the skill system proposal and allows for an observation of disparities in opinion by the pedagogues at different levels of the educational system.
The third phase of the project consisted in the testing of partial skills from the aforementioned skillsets on students aged 10−11, and (separately for each subject area) 14−15 and 17−18 years, at both the 2nd level of elementary school (lower secondary level) and at gymnasiums. Simultaneously, we have created a survey for teachers and students, in order to successfully put the students’ test results into context. The outputs of structured interviews with 27 randomly selected teachers with varying approbations and lengths of experience also formed an important source of information used for an adjustment of our original proposals.
The structure and content of the monograph corresponds with the phases of the research project. The first two chapters have an introductory character and frame the topic of skills in its wider context. The following sections then present the outputs of the individual research phases, divided by subjects. The concluding seventh chapter compares and discusses the acquired results for biology, geography, and chemistry. Tests and surveys created and used as part of the project are available in the appendix.
The comparison of results across disciplines, conducted during the final stage, allows for a deeper insight into the formation and structuring of subject-relevant skills, as well as into the process of their implementation. We have selected several findings from this part of the research. From the comparison of the opinions of teachers from various levels of the educational system, analysed through the Kruskal-Wallis median test, and the Analysis of variance (ANOVA), it can be concluded that:
In principle, the newly proposed structure of skills in biology, geography and chemistry is accepted by teachers from all levels of the education system. This agreement, however, is very rough, since the internal heterogeneity of the observed items is considerable and the nature of the compared disciplines (subjects) is rather different. The results primarily indicate that there is a broad consensus among the teachers of biology, geography and chemistry in terms of the research-based attitude as a whole, while not so much on the specific skills representing the given categories. The fact that each respondent considered the specific skills first and the outputs were subsequently aggregated into “macro-categories” related to research effort results in considerable discrepancies between the opinions voiced by academics and those held by teachers in primary and secondary schools, as well as differences between the individual disciplines. Geographers approached as part of the survey show the highest level of heterogeneity in their opinions. The explanation to this can likely be found in the complex nature of this scientific discipline when compared to the “purely natural scientific” disciplines of chemistry and biology. This fact also increases the heterogeneity of categories which include both natural-scientific and social-scientific skills. This is naturally also reflected in the diversity of opinions. This could lead to a presumption that biology and chemistry have a much closer relationship in terms of their scientific character; however occasional statistically significant variation in opinions between teachers of chemistry and biology reveals that this assertion is far from straightforward.
The proposed skills from all four main skillsets are mostly accepted by both practicing pedagogues and academics of all disciplines. Certain categories, however, show differences in the preferences across the separate levels of the educational system, which indicates a need to adjust the expectation on the developed skills to the relevant educational stage.
The results of the testing of students of various ages demonstrated that their level of internalization of the assessed skills is relatively good. Nevertheless, there appear to be discrepancies between the individual skillsets. The skillset concerned with the asking of scientific question comes off as the least developed. The ability to form conclusion, on the other hand, emerges as the strongest. Further research is necessary in this direction in order to determine the level of achievement of all partial skills in the individual skillsets.
Several obstacles to more successful implementation of the proposed structure of skills emerge from the comparison of the testimonies of the 27 interviewed teachers. These include, for example, a certain barrier in communication through an unclear definition of skills or approach to teaching, when the skills apply to teachers and not students. It also appears that one of the deciding factors in the weak presence of the topic of skills in education is the relative difficulty in the assessment of skills, when compared with the assessment of knowledge.