Abstract:

Celiac disease has a huge impact on the quality of life of people living with the disease, especially on a social level. It is believed that increasing the general population's knowledge about the disease would improve their inclusion in society. On the other hand, compulsory secondary education is the time when students learn what the scientific method is and how to carry out a research project, so it is a good time to develop experiences that help to understand, in a critical way, the things that happen to them and to other people around them. Therefore, the aim of this work is to design an educational activity that aims to improve knowledge about celiac disease and the gluten-free diet through the development of research projects by teams of students and researchers.

An activity was designed to be carried out over 5 months. It was based on competences related to balanced diet and celiac disease, which will be developed through project-based methodology. The activity will involve the Gluten3S research team (11 researchers), students in the 3rd or 4th year of compulsory secondary education and the person responsible for the class. Students will work under the guidance of the researchers through several meetings and following the scientific method. Each group will choose a subtopic related to celiac disease and gluten-free diet, and will have to develop an investigation about the selected topic. The research works will be complementary to each other and together they will gather all the important aspects of the disease and its treatment.

This work shows the preliminary results from a pilot study which indicates the overall suitability of the design. Students increased their understanding related to balanced diet and celiac disease, which could contribute to improve their attitude towards social inclusion of people with celiac disease. However, attitude changes where not observed indicating that the complexities of changing attitudes must be taken into account in future redesign.

In conclusion, students must handle real data from their environment, generating complementary knowledge to that of other groups, in a systematic way, and thus creating a group spirit with a common goal. But beyond the educational aspect, data-based knowledge about celiac disease in these students is a potential ally for the inclusion of people with this pathology who can interact in some way in the future with all of them. Therefore, more attention should be paid to social competences related to inclusion in these kind of education interventions.

Keywords:

Teamwork, research based learning, University and High School Education, celiac disease.