Browsing by Author "Realdon, Giulia"
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- Development and validation of a framework for the assessment of school curricula on the presence of evolutionary concepts (FACE)Publication . Sá-Pinto, Xana; Realdon, Giulia; Torkar, Gregor; Sousa, Bruno; Georgiou, Martha; Jeffries, Alex; Korfiatis, Konstantinos; Paolucci, Silvia; Pessoa, Patrícia; Rocha, Joana; Stasinakis, Panagiotis K.; Cavadas, Bento; Crottini, Angelica; Gnidovec, Tanja; Nogueira, Teresa; Papadopoulou, Penelope; Piccoli, Costanza; Barstad, Johan; Dufour, Heloise D.; Pejchinovska, Milena; Pobric, Alma; Cvetković, Dragana; Mavrikaki, EvangeliaEvolution is a key concept of biology, fundamental to understand the world and address important societal problems, but research studies show that it is still not widely understood and accepted. Several factors are known to influence evolution acceptance and understanding, but little information is available regarding the impacts of the curriculum on these aspects. Very few curricula have been examined to assess the coverage of biological evolution. The available studies do not allow comparative analyses, due to the different methodologies employed by the authors. However, such an analysis would be useful for research purposes and for the development of appropriate educational policies to address the problem of a lack of evolution acceptance in some countries. In this paper we describe the steps through which we developed a valid and reliable instrument for curricula analysis known as FACE: “Framework to Assess the Coverage of biological Evolution by school curricula.” This framework was developed based on the “Understanding Evolution Conceptual Framework” (UECF). After an initial pilot study, our framework was reformulated based on identified issues and experts’ opinions. To generate validity and reliability evidence in support of the framework, it was applied to four European countries’ curricula. For each country, a team of a minimum of two national and two foreign coders worked independently to assess the curriculum using this framework for content analysis. Reliability evidence was estimated using Krippendorf's alpha and resulted in appropriate values for coding the examined curricula. Some issues that coders faced during the analysis were discussed and, to ensure better reliability for future researchers, additional guidelines and one extra category were included in the framework. The final version of the framework includes six categories and 34 subcategories. FACE is a useful tool for the analysis and the comparison of curricula and school textbooks regarding the coverage of evolution, and such results can guide curricula development.
- Development and validation of a framework for the assessment of school curricula on the presence of evolutionary concepts (FACE)Publication . Sá-Pinto, Xana; Realdon, Giulia; Torkar, Gregor; Sousa, Bruno; Georgiou, Martha; Jeffries, Alex; Korfiatis, Konstantinos; Paolucci, Silvia; Pessoa, Patrícia; Rocha, Joana; Stasinakis, Panagiotis K.; Cavadas, Bento; Crottini, Angelica; Gnidovec, Tanja; Nogueira, Teresa; Papadopoulou, Penelope; Piccoli, Costanza; Barstad, Johan; Dufour, Heloise D.; Pejchinovska, Milena; Pobric, Alma; Cvetković, Dragana; Mavrikaki, EvangeliaEvolution is a key concept of biology, fundamental to understand the world and address important societal problems, but research studies show that it is still not widely understood and accepted. Several factors are known to influence evolution acceptance and understanding, but little information is available regarding the impacts of the curriculum on these aspects. Very few curricula have been examined to assess the coverage of biological evolution. The available studies do not allow comparative analyses, due to the different methodologies employed by the authors. However, such an analysis would be useful for research purposes and for the development of appropriate educational policies to address the problem of a lack of evolution acceptance in some countries. In this paper we describe the steps through which we developed a valid and reliable instrument for curricula analysis known as FACE: “Framework to Assess the Coverage of biological Evolution by school curricula.” This framework was developed based on the “Understanding Evolution Conceptual Framework” (UECF). After an initial pilot study, our framework was reformulated based on identified issues and experts’ opinions. To generate validity and reliability evidence in support of the framework, it was applied to four European countries’ curricula. For each country, a team of a minimum of two national and two foreign coders worked independently to assess the curriculum using this framework for content analysis. Reliability evidence was estimated using Krippendorf's alpha and resulted in appropriate values for coding the examined curricula. Some issues that coders faced during the analysis were discussed and, to ensure better reliability for future researchers, additional guidelines and one extra category were included in the framework. The final version of the framework includes six categories and 34 subcategories. FACE is a useful tool for the analysis and the comparison of curricula and school textbooks regarding the coverage of evolution, and such results can guide curricula development.
- Evolution in European and Israeli school curricula – a comparative analysisPublication . Mavrikaki, Evangelia; Realdon, Giulia; Aivelo, Tuomas; Bajrami, Ani; Dilek Bakanay, Çiçek; Beniermann, Anna; Blagojević, Jelena; Butkeviciene, Egle; Cavadas, Bento; Cossu, Costantina; Cvetković, Dragana; Drobniak, Szymon M.; Özgür Durmuş, Zelal; Marta Dvořáková, Radka; Eens, Marcel; Eret, Esra; Eroglu, Seckin; Anna Gazda, Małgorzata; Georgiou, Martha; Gostling, Neil J.; Gregorčič, Tanja; Janštová, Vanda; Jenkins, Tania; Kervinen, Anttoni; Korfiatis, Konstantinos; Kuschmierz, Paul; Lendvai, Ádám Z.; de Lima, Joelyn; Miri, Fundime; Nogueira, Teresa; Panayides, Andreas; Paolucci, Sylvia; Papadopoulou, Penelope; Pessoa, Patrícia; Pinxten, Rianne; Rios Rocha, Joana; Fernández Sánchez, Andrea; Siani, Merav; Sokoli, Elvisa; Sousa, Bruno; Stasinakis, Panagiotis K.; Torkar, Gregor; Valackiene, Asta; Varga, Máté; Vázquez Ben, Lucía; Yarden, Anat; Sá-Pinto, XanaThe contribution of school curricula to public understanding and acceptance of evolution is still mostly unknown, due to the scarcity of studies that compare the learning goals present in different curricula. To overcome this lack of data we analysed 19 school curricula (18 European and one from Israel) to study the differences regarding the inclusion of learning goals targeting evolution understanding. We performed a quantitative content analysis using the Framework for the Assessment of school Curricula on the presence of Evolutionary concepts (FACE). For each country/region we analysed what this educational system considered the minimum evolution education a citizen should get. Our results reveal that: (i) the curricula include less than half of the learning goals considered important for scientific literacy in evolution; (ii) the most frequent learning goals address basic knowledge of evolution; (iii) learning goals related with the processes that drive evolution are often not included or rarely mentioned; (iv) evolution is most often not linked to its applications in everyday life. These results highlight the need to rethink evolution education across Europe