The Evaluation of Pre-Service Teachers’ Well-being during the COVID-19 PandemicOrolínová, Mária
doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/3037/1/012022pmid: N/A
In the article, we examine the personal well-being of student teachers in 2020 and 2021. Two hundred participants were recruited from a secondary pre-service teacher preparation program at the Faculty of Education, University of Trnava. The data were collected through a questionnaire survey, mostly in a Likert scale design. The results showed that students who prefer constructive coping strategies in stressful situations also cope better in COVID-19 pandemic situations and have positive expectations for the future. A link between personal well-being and current academic achievement was not proven. Negative well-being was found to be related to unconstructive coping strategies, uncertainty about the future, and worry about family members. The findings suggest that pre-service teachers at Trnava University are sensitive to the changed situation. The university’s attention should be focused on social and psychological support for students, as the pandemic seems not to be over yet.
The Success of Secondary Grammar School Students in Solving Physics Tasks Depending on the Time Used on Their SolutionJaruska, Ladislav; Fehér, Zoltán; Árki, Zuzana; Berta, Tünde
doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/3037/1/012020pmid: N/A
In the upper grades of primary school and secondary school, the subjects of physics, chemistry, and biology together contribute to the development of students’ science thinking and education. Through the presented research, we wanted to get an overview of how successfully secondary grammar school students are in solving tasks with physical content, which are built on selected elements of scientific thinking and inquiry skills. The main aim of our research was to find out what is the current level of development of selected inquiry skills of secondary grammar school students. To answer the research question, we developed a test that evaluates the level of selected inquiry skills. The students’ inquiry skills were measured with a research instrument developed from a total of 20 tasks, and 4-4 tasks were selected from the subjects: informatics, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics. In this paper, some results, analyses, and conclusions focus particularly on the assessment of four physics tasks. The survey involved 1,517 students from 23 secondary grammar schools. In our article, we focus on analyzing the correlation between the success of students in the survey in solving physics problems and the time taken to solve them. We analyzed the respondents´ answers for solving tasks and identified their successfulness within individual sets of scientific skills and the areas of scientific skills that caused the most problems in solving for respondents.
Scientific Computing with Open SageMath not only for Physics EducationBorovský, Dominik; Hanč, Jozef; Hančová, Martina
doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/3037/1/012006pmid: N/A
Nowadays, interactive digital scientific environments have become an integral part of scientific computing in solving various scientific tasks in research, but also in STEM education. We introduce SageMath, or shortly Sage ⎯ a free open Python-based alternative to the well-known commercial software ⎯ in the frame of our course Methods of Physical Problems Solving for future scientists and science teachers. Particularly, in the 1st illustrative example from the Physics Olympiad, we present Sage as a scientific open data source, symbolic, numerical, and visualization tool. The 2nd example from the Young Physicists’ Tournament shows Sage as a multimedia, modeling, and programming tool. By employing SageMath as an open digital environment for scientific computing in the education of all STEM disciplines, teachers and students are empowered not only with a universal educational tool, but a real research tool, enabling them to engage in interactive visualization, modeling, programming, and solving of authentic, complex interdisciplinary problems, thus naturally enhancing their motivation to pursue science in alignment with the core mission of STEM education.
Subject Matter of Inorganic Chemistry at the ISCED 2 LevelČtrnáctová, Hana; Vlčková, Tereza
doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/3037/1/012009pmid: N/A
The contribution deals with the selection and structuring of the subject matter of inorganic chemistry at the ISCED 2 level. It starts from the selection of information and activities corresponding to the current goals and expected outputs of education. In order to express the subject matter structure, decided on the basis of logical connections between the individual pieces of knowledge, the use of graphs allows for orderly visualization of the structure. The analysis of subject matter in FEP and current textbooks clearly shows that the most common ordering of the subject matter is the deductive one, starting from general chemistry knowledge and using it to deduce the knowledge of inorganic chemistry. Since this way of teaching, as a lot of research shows, is very abstract for the students, we have suggested and graphically expressed a subject matter structure based on the inductive ordering of the subject matter. The starting knowledge here is information from real life, stated in a nonverbal way; these are understandable for the students through their graphicness and because they show them natural substances, manufactured products, or phenomena they know. They use this to derive further knowledge, gradually reaching an understanding of the properties and behavior of elements and their compounds.
Exploring Misconceptions in Chemistry Education through Formative Assessment ToolSzarka, Katarína
doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/3037/1/012017pmid: N/A
The study focuses on two areas of chemistry education: misconceptions, which are undesirable elements of the learning process, and an ever-present problem in chemistry education; and the second area is classroom assessment, with an emphasis on formative assessment, which is still poorly applied in the practice of Slovak schools. In our paper, we aim to provide a brief overview of misconceptions in chemistry education and to characterize selected formative classroom assessment tools (FACT) that have also been instruments of empirical research exploring misconceptions. The paper also aims to present the results of empirical research aimed at exploring misconceptions about physical and chemical change using the selected formative assessment tool. The target population consisted of pupils aged 14–15 (N = 148, 63 males and 85 females). As a research tool, we used the FACT called “Always - Sometimes - Never” (A-S-N) (Keeley, 2015). Due to this formative assessment tool, we identified several alternative conceptions or misconceptions of the pupils described in other studies, and confirmed their existence in chemistry education.
Optimisation of Loss on Ignition at Soil for Application at School LabHrdlička, Jan; Mrákota, Vít
doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/3037/1/012012pmid: N/A
One of the parameters that is used to evaluate soil quality is the content of organic matter, which can be determined as the so-called loss on ignition. The execution of determining loss on ignition is, in principle, very simple, but it is demanding on some laboratory equipment and on work time. This contribution describes the procedures that are a model of the loss on ignition, and it is possible to accomplish them in the school laboratory. Part of the whole contribution is also the evaluation of the accuracy of data obtained by simplified procedures with data corresponding to the original method.
The Opinions of Chemistry Teachers and Chemistry Teaching Students on Systemic AssessmentGanajová, Mária; Sotáková, Ivana
doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/3037/1/012018pmid: N/A
The paper deals with the education strategy referred to as SATL (Systemic Approach in Teaching and Learning). This approach involves systemic assessment. It is based on systemic tasks in which students are supposed to consider multiple concepts at once and apply them in a new situation, which requires synthesis to formulate a complex answer. The research goal was to collect the opinions of chemistry teachers and chemistry teaching students on the implementation of systemic tasks in teaching. For this purpose, worksheets with different types of systemic tasks were created (e.g. systemic synthesis, systemic analysis, multiple choice, true/false, matching, arranging) for the selected topics of inorganic (sodium and its compounds, calcium and its compounds) and organic (e.g. hydrocarbons, hydroxy derivatives, carboxylic acids) chemistry. 89 teachers implemented the worksheets in their teaching over two school years (2019 – 2021) with a sample of 2136 2nd-year grammar school students. Subsequently, these teachers expressed their views and attitudes towards this type of task in a questionnaire. 40 chemistry teaching students were learning about systemic tasks and performing them during the Chemistry Didactics course over two academic years (2019 – 2021). Subsequently, they expressed their opinions on and attitudes to these tasks in a questionnaire developed by the authors. The teachers and chemistry teaching students considered the development of critical thinking, thinking on higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, and group work the main advantages of systemic tasks. However, they considered the time-consuming nature of these tasks a disadvantage in terms of implementation.
Level of Selected Inquiry Skills among Pupils of Eight-Year Grammar SchoolsFuchs, Michael; Čipková, Elena; Karolčík, Štefan; Šmida, Dominik
doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/3037/1/012016pmid: N/A
The current concept of science education is based on a constructivist approach, which requires pupils to take an active part in acquiring new knowledge and developing skills in science. If they want to obtain them, they should use methods and procedures that copy the nature of scientific inquiry, provide them with direct experience of scientific work, and allow them to discover the actual nature of natural phenomena and objects. Thus, the necessity for systematic development of inquiry skills comes to the fore, through which pupils can inquire, discover, and find solutions to authentic problems that they may confront in daily life. Sufficiently developed inquiry skills enable pupils to better understand the laws of nature and thus participate in the development of their own level of science literacy. In this paper, we focus on presenting the results of research aimed at determining the level of selected inquiry skills among pupils of eight-year grammar schools in Slovakia. The results suggest that pupils achieved a relatively low level of inquiry skills, especially in designing and planning experiments and formulating predictions associated with the inquiry process.