Abstract:

Puberty can be described as a fundamental hormonal process of physical changes in connection with a significantly changing psyche, with the awareness of one´s own personality. Puberty is an important element of sexual education in both the European and the global dimension.Timely preparedness for puberty means that children should acquire the necessary knowledge of puberty before it starts. That is, during the prepubescent period, when they are primary school pupils. Knowledge is a summary of the acquired information gained in the learning process. It expresses pupils´awareness. The level of puberty knowledge is represented by the level of instruction and it is expressed by the quantity and quality of information. Our educational research realized what level of knowledge about puberty is shown by primary school pupils in selected countries where we conducted our research (the Czech Republic, China, Spain, Sweden). The aim of the research was to compare the level of puberty knowledge of primary school pupils in particular countries. As a research method for data collection, we used a non-parametric didactic knowledge test. The level of puberty knowledge was verified by 9 free-response test tasks. The content of the test tasks was focused on the concept of puberty; on the puberty definition; on the age range of puberty period; on the knowledge of bodily characters changes in boys and girls; on the knowledge of other changes emerging in puberty and on the importance of puberty in human life. The individual test responses were numerically encoded, namely the correct answer by digit 2, the partly correct answer by digit 1, and the incorrect answer by digit 0. For test items where no response was written, the number 5 was coded. We used the statistics (non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test) and methods of descriptive statistics to describe the obtained data, examined datasets acquired in the particular countries and their characteristics. The text summarizes the results of educational research. The scores of pupils´ answers to all questions in particular countries showed mainly statistically significant differences. In accordance with the final results, we have stated that partly correct knowledge of puberty, or incomplete awareness of pupils, expresses the fact that they have not built up the right knowledge and do not comprehend the relationships and connections with puberty comprehensively. There is a need to strengthen incomplete knowledge of puberty among pupils in terms of a comprehensive approach, in the context of all changes in biological, psychological and social areas, and with regard to the specificity of both sexes.

Keywords:

Pupils, puberty, knowledge, testing, results, comparison.