Soňa Nagyová

Slovak High School Students' Attitudes toward Computers

The pervasive involvement of information and communication technologies and computers in our daily lives influences changes of attitude toward computers. We focused on finding these ecological effects in the differences in computer attitudes as a function of gender and age. A questionnaire with 34 Likert-type items was used in our research. The sample consisted of 659 students from 14 high schools, aged 15–19 years attending the first, the second, the third, and the fourth years of study. The results of the questionnaire were divided into the two dimensions of concrete computer enjoyment and computer anxiety. On the first dimension both younger students and girls have positive attitudes. On the second dimension both younger students and boys have more positive attitudes. Overall, girls have more positive attitudes than boys. This is interesting because in the existing literature there is evidence that boys have more positive attitudes toward computers than girls. Perhaps a change is taking place.

What is the students’ interest in biology after the biology curriculum modification?

ABSTRACT Decreasing interest in Science among students, confirmed by several investigations, calls for the need to revise the contents of the curricula for Science subjects, including Biology. Modern Biology curricula should not only contain key biological concepts but also provide a teacher with sufficient space to develop students’ competencies of scientific work and positive attitudes to Science. When preparing the curriculum, it is necessary to consider also students’ interest in selected curriculum topics and their benefit for everyday life. The objective of our research was to identify whether the performed transformation of the Biology curriculum for elementary schools increased the students’ interest in Biology and the contents thereof. We were also investigating students’ preferences in their interest in Biology topics and their interest in selected teaching methods and approaches. Our research confirmed the positive interest in Biology among majority of students who prefer direct, active participation in the process of knowledge acquisition through the study and exploration of living organisms as well as by the execution and assessment of practicals and experiments.