Attitudes of Pupils in Lower Secondary Education towards Geography Subject

Abstract

In our study, we dealt with the investigation of attitudes of elementary school pupils towards geography taught in schools which is at the lower education level represented by the school subject with the identical title. This research was carried out in years 2017 and 2018 in three elementary schools located in rural areas of Slovakia. The total average value for the examined components of the attitude among pupils attending grades 5 to 9 was 3.41 (SD = 1.43) which represents slightly positive attitudes of pupils towards Geography subject. Pupils reported that the most interesting geography contents were the topics taught in the 5th grade. As the most difficult they regarded the topics taught in the 6th grade (Regional Geography – Africa, Asia) and in the 7th grade (Regional Geography – Europe); by contrast, they think that the least difficult topics are taught in the 9 th grade (Slovakia). They have most problems remembering the names of mountains, lowlands, rivers and countries. In the investigation of differences in attitudes of pupils towards Geography in individual grades of the lower secondary education the highest average scores were observed among 5th graders (x = 3.58). By contrast, the lowest scores were achieved, surprisingly, by 6th graders (x = 3.27). The average scores of Geography assessment by pupils slightly increased in 6th to 9th grades. The statistical analysis confirmed that the differences between individual grades and between genders as to the average score values achieved by the pupils are not statistically significant.