Abstract:

Adolescence is a broadly defined stage of life. It involves psychological and social changes and ends with reproductive ability and the completion of physical growth. Puberty is part of adolescence and it is an important element of sexuality education in the global dimension. Children need to be adequately prepared for puberty and have acquired the necessary knowledge before it starts as primary school pupils. The cognitive level of knowledge represents the level of learning and expresses the amount and quality of information. The present educational research focuses on the level of knowledge about puberty among primary school pupils in the Czech Republic, Sweden, China, and Spain. The data were obtained by didactic knowledge tests. The level of knowledge was verified by the means of nine test questions with open-ended answers. The content of the nine test tasks focused on the concept of puberty; definition of puberty; age range of puberty period; knowledge of changes in physical characteristics of boys and girls; knowledge of other changes emerging in puberty, and the importance of puberty in human life. To identify statistically significant differences in pupils’ responses across countries, the non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test was used. According to the results of the research, primary school pupils do not have sufficient knowledge concerning puberty and do not take into account the aspects concerning puberty from a comprehensive biological, psychological, and social perspective.

Keywords:

Puberty, pupils, knowledge, testing, results.