ACTIONS TO IMPROVE THE ACHIEVEMENT OF SCIENTIFIC COMPETENCIES IN PRIMARY EDUCATION

Taking into account several reports which evaluate the acquisition of the basic competences from the primary school students in Spain, it can be observed that students have the necessary scientific knowledge but do not know how to apply it. Moreover, there is a positive perception of Science and Technology in general, but students do not value science subjects in a positive way and their interest decrease as the different educational levels advance. With regard to teachers, studies like “Teachers Matter. Attracting, Developing and Retaining Effective Teachers” show the need for teachers to have a good knowledge of the different disciplines and indicate that the training of teachers in Spain has a lower degree of specialization in Sciences than in other countries.

With the aim to improve the achievement of scientific competencies in Primary Education (PE), a teaching innovation project was proposed and carried out by a multidisciplinary team consisting of professionals who act as teachers in Primary and Secondary Education and the University (Chemistry Department). The main objective of the project was the development of some methodological guidelines and proposals to be applied by primary school teachers that allow increasing the knowledge and safety of the teacher at the time of imparting scientific content to their students.

Information obtained through a survey of PE teachers was collected (n=56) to know the current situation regarding the teaching of Natural Sc., e.g. resources used in the classrooms, conducting experiments, teaching-learning projects, limitations to carry out experiments, etc., which allowed us to collect data on the acquisition of scientific skills. It can be concluded that although demonstration activities are being carried out for the area of Natural Sc. in PE (88%), the courses that carry out at least one experiment per didactic unit represent less than one third (29%). The lack of material resources (33%) and the heterogeneity of the students (33%), appear as the main causes for not conducting experiments in PE, followed by safety reasons (17%) and lack of confidence in the contents of the area (17%). Finally, teachers consider that demonstrative classroom sessions with experiments applicable to a primary classroom (55%), followed by a printed/audiovisual material (29%) will be the most efficient counseling.

Thus, we propose the development of different actions dedicated to improving the achievement of scientific competencies in PE, all of them focused on increasing experimentation as didactic methodology:
a) a workshop was held showing a high degree of satisfaction due to the adequacy of the level and the detailed explanation of the scientific bases (94% rated it as excellent, 6% as good, 0% as bad/regular, n=38);
b) a document is being prepared that includes the foundations of the several proposed experiments and videos showing how they are made, to be distributed among the teachers who participated in the survey.

The final evaluation of this project will be performed considering the academic results of different courses, of teachers who used the audiovisual material or participated in the workshop, before and after increasing the experimentation in their classes.