Abstract:

The results of international research showed poor results of Croatian students in mathematical literacy and problem solving, which led to the need to revise national curricula. This paper presents a content analysis and a comparative analysis of the curriculum of mathematics subject in elementary school education in the Republic of Croatia. With the help of qualitative content analysis, the goals, content, weekly and annual number of hours of the mathematics subject according to the National Framework Curriculum in 2011 were compared with the curriculum adopted through the School for Life project in 2019.

The results of the analysis show that the curricula do not differ significantly in the set goals and content, weekly and annual number of hours. Differences appear in the redistribution of teaching contents that are covered in individual classes. Analyzing the content of the development of educational outcomes, it was observed that within the framework of the National Framework Curriculum in 2011, according to Bloom's taxonomy, typical active verbs predominate at a lower level of understanding and knowledge of the cognitive domain, while typical active verbs can also be found among the outcomes of the School for Life.

According to the results of this study, we conclude that levels of achievement of educational outcomes do not point to a systematic disburdening of students. Only a different way of distributing the teaching material by cycles or classes is shown. The research shows that the new curriculum of the School for Life emphasizes increasing the competence of students in solving problems and critical thinking, which represents some of the key skills of the 21st century.

Keywords:

Curriculum, competencies, goals, mathematics, teaching content, weekly and annual number of hours.