engleski

Elementary School Pupils' and Teachers' Perspectives on Physics as a School Subject

Croatia has been undergoing changes in the national curriculum for elementary schools. A new "Teaching plan and programme" has been recently introduced by the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports and in the following years a completely new curriculum is expected to be developed. This paper presents the results of a research conducted on pupils and teachers before the introduction of the curricular changes on a representative sample of 121 elementary schools. The aim of the research was the examination of the pupils’ and teachers’ opinions and attitudes towards teaching plans, teaching methods, their perception of the subjects, etc. The empirical data should be a useful foundation for the new curriculum and for the future investigation of the implementation and the impact of the introduced curricular changes. The paper presents the results concerning the subject physics, but, where appropriate, a comparison with other subjects is also given. Some gender differences in pupils’ answers are presented as well. This research shows that physics as a school subject is rather unpopular among the pupils. It is considered uninteresting, hard to understand and not very useful, especially by the girls. Teachers’ opinions are more positive than the pupils’ , but most of them think that curricular changes are desirable.

physics education; teachers' perspectives; pupils' perspectives

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