Abstract:

In accordance with our previous experience from the KEGA project no. 006UPJŠ-4/2021 solution (project topic: Formation of content, methods and educational forms for a new professionally focused study program Chemical Laboratory Technician - specialist at UCHV PF UPJŠ) a graduate directly prepared for practice is increasingly in demand on the labor market, whether in the field of industry, pharmacy or medicine. Different branches of life sciences also require preparing the students for biomedical and pharmaceutical practice. Biosciences cross over all areas of sciences (e.g. biophysics, biology, biochemistry, bioinformatics, etc.) as a lot of research is focused on the study of biological systems (from microorganisms to humans). Based on the above, higher education in the field of biosciences needs to build on strong bases therefore the teachers of chemistry subjects at our institute decided to develop a new and high-quality bachelor's study program in Biochemistry within the KEGA project no. 007UPJŠ-4/2024 entitled " Preparation and formation of a new bachelor study program Biochemistry at UCHV PF UPJŠ in Košice". However, the accreditation document creation requires a deep analysis of the biochemistry teaching state in secondary schools to be education is coherent and logical. Therefore, we asked colleagues, chemistry teachers, from secondary schools with questions that would help us with this analysis.

The contribution is focused to the opinions of grammar school chemistry teachers on the influence of didactic tools, especially textbooks, and other factors on the teaching of biochemistry because these factors can significantly influence the quality of teaching and students' interest in further studies of Biochemistry.

To evaluate the difficulty of the chemistry textbook, we used the questionnaire method that provided us the opinions of chemistry teachers on the advantages and disadvantages of chemistry textbook for Biochemistry. Teachers positively evaluated the professional processing of the teaching text, its comprehensibility, clarity, relevance of topics and structure.

From the point of topics difficulty view, teachers evaluate individual topics differently, with up to 14 teachers out of 23 respondents marked Heterocyclic compounds as the most difficult topic, and only one teacher considers the topic Vitamins to be the most difficult. Teachers see the greatest connection of information with biology in the topic Nucleic acids, as many as 12 teachers marked this topic as related to biology. Oppositely, only one respondent observed the connection between chemistry and biology textbooks in the topic Lipids.

From the point of view of the teaching methodology, they would welcome additional material with test tasks focused on higher thought operations, tasks focused on everyday life, further activities for laboratory work, or currently much-needed STEM activities.

The analysis of the answers also pointed out the reasons for the students' motivation to learn biochemistry: it is mainly the interest to study medicine, pharmacy, further interest to work in a laboratory, the effort to find a good job, or to meet the demands of parents, etc. Moreover, the teachers consider the number of teaching lessons to be insufficient - only one hour a week.

Keywords:

Education, biochemistry, grammar school, teachers, new study program, questionnaire - evaluation.