PHYSICAL-SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE AND PATTERNS OF ACHIEVEMENT AT THE PRIMARY-SECONDARY INTERFACE PART 1. GENERAL STUDENT POPULATION

Abstract

In primary Greek schools, physics and chemistry are part of the integrated science programme which is taught in the final two grades, fifth and sixth. Nine hundred and seventy-six seventh and eighth-grade students (age 11.5-13.5), from nine urban and semi-urban Greek lower secondary schools, each answered one out of three similar tests, in an investigation of basic physics and chemistry knowledge and patterns of student achievement at the primary-secondary interface. The mean overall achievement in all three tests (17.2% for the seventh and 21.5% for the eighth grade) was low. The older students achieved higher than the younger ones in all three tests. This is surprising given that the knowledge tested was taught in fifth and sixth grades, and was less immediate for the eighth-grade students. Achievement on macroscopic physics topics was higher than macroscopic chemistry topics. Submicroscopic topics (referring to corpuscular matter) proved much more difficult than macroscopic topics. As expected critical-thinking questions were much harder than questions demanding simple recall or recognition of knowledge. In all cases, boys achieved higher than girls; however, there was a drop in the gender gap from the seventh to the eighth grade. The implications of the findings are discussed. [Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. Eur.: 2001, 2, 241-252]