Chemistry Education at Primary and Secondary Grammar Schools in the Czech Republic: Target Skills From the Point of view of Pupils and Graduates
Abstract
The question, what the pupils should be taught, is one of the key problems of subject didactics. The aim of authors of this research was to find out the opinion of primary and secondary grammar schools pupils and that of the graduates.
The most important results are analyzed more in detail using another questionnaire investigation realized between primary and secondary schools teachers. A questionnaire survey performed with 1254 pupils of primary schools and eightyear high schools, 122 respondents with completed chemistry training (university study was not included).
This work deals with only one question taken from each of the questionnaires. Pupils: Concerning chemistry, what would you like to learn? Graduates: Concerning chemistry, what are you interested in? Another questionnaire was answered by 82 teachers (primary and secondary grammar school, eight-year high school).
This work deals just only with issues of chemical experiments at school. In the results, we deal with: differences between primary school and responding years of study eight-year high school pupils' opinions; the effect of age on the responses; a comparison of the answers of pupils with those of the graduates; teachers' views on the problem, to which extent should graduates from primary and secondary grammar school manage different stages of school chemical experiments.
Conclusions: It seems that dominant interest in experiments (the youngest pupils) disappears with age. On the other hand, specific requirements for certain practical problems (chemistry of food, detergents, cosmetics, ...) arise.
The opinions of the teachers on target skills connected with school chemical experiments of pupils leaving primary or secondary school correlate together very well. The only disagreement concerns chemical calculations.
Acknowledgments: The research was supported by grant project GAČR č. P407/10/0514