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At this moment in time, which is marked by extremely negative human influences on the environment, and when a sustainable development of nature is needed, school has a significant role in developing students’ knowledge, skills and attitudes towards natural sciences. In European countries, students gain biological knowledge during primary school either through integrated or specific subjects. This paper contains the results of a comparative analysis of the biological content in teaching programs and curricula in three European countries - Serbia, Finland and England. In Serbia, biological contents are included in two integrated subjects (The World Around Us and Nature and Society) during the first cycle of compulsory education, while during the second cycle they are included in a separate subject - biology - and are linearly arranged. Throughout compulsory education in Finland and England, biological contents are concentrically arranged and are realized through the students’ research work in their surroundings in several school subjects.

Based on the new technology initiative in Serbian education, we explored primary school teachers’ attitudes toward Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) in biology teaching, as well as the relationships between the teachers’ attitudes and four independent variables: age, teaching experience, teachers’ competence to use modern teaching aids and their professional advanced training in the field of computer applied learning. Fifty-four elementary school biology teachers from Novi Sad participated in the study. The findings suggested that the teachers generally had positive attitudes toward CAL in biology teaching. Correlation analyses revealed significant relationships between age, teaching experience, teachers’ competence to use modern teaching aids in the teaching process, professional advanced training in the field of computer applied learning, and the teachers’ attitudes toward CAL. We offer suggestions for further research in this field. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 179010]

In this paper, we present the results of pedagogical studies of biology lectures in a high school. The subject Ecology is realized in the second year of high school during 14 classes employing an interdisciplinary approach (correlation of terms from Biology, Geography, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics) in an experimental (E) group and compared to traditional classes in a control (C) group. Students from the E group achieved significantly better success in the final test (70.60 points average) and retest (57.60 points average) than students from the C group (51.80 points at final test and 40.60 points at retest). These results point to the greater efficiency of the model of interdisciplinary teaching of ecology in relation to the traditional approach and we recommend the former to be more utilized in biology classes.

The paper analyzes the comparative effectiveness of Computer-Assisted Learning (CAL) and the traditional teaching method in biology on primary school pupils. A stratified random sample consisted of 214 pupils from two primary schools in Novi Sad. The pupils in the experimental group learned the biology content (Chordate) using CAL, whereas the pupils in the control group learned the same content using traditional teaching. The research design was the pretest-posttest equivalent groups design. All instruments (the pretest, the posttest and the retest) contained the questions belonging to three different cognitive domains: knowing, applying, and reasoning. Arithmetic mean, standard deviation, and standard error were analyzed using the software package SPSS 14.0, and t-test was used in order to establish the difference between the same statistical indicators. The analysis of results of the post­test and the retest showed that the pupils from the CAL group achieved significantly higher quantity and quality of knowledge in all three cognitive domains than the pupils from the traditional group. The results accomplished by the pupils from the CAL group suggest that individual CAL should be more present in biology teaching in primary schools, with the aim of raising the quality of biology education in pupils. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 179010: Quality of Educational System in Serbia in the European Perspective]

Copyright of Croatian Journal of Education / Hrvatski Časopis za Odgoj i Obrazovanje is the property of Uciteljski Fakultet u Zagrebu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Croatian Journal of Education / Hrvatski Časopis za Odgoj i Obrazovanje is the property of Uciteljski Fakultet u Zagrebu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)