Lower Secondary School Students' Knowledge of and Misconceptions About Animal Migration: Preliminary Results

Abstract

The animal migration is one of the natural processes and is important not only for animals but also for people. Although this process is inseparable part of the nature, its incorporation into curriculum is on low level, not only in Czech Republic, but also in many other countries. The aim of the research was to identify lower secondary school students' knowledge of and misconceptions about animal migration and to identify if gender, grade and residence of respondents have an influence on it. The sample size was created by 184 Czech lower secondary school students. The researcher himself created the research tool. It was a test and consisted of 18 questions. The test questions were also analyzed by the proportional determination and also by the methods of descriptive and inferential statistics. The knowledge of migration was very low among lower secondary school students. The grade level had the strongest influence on the knowledge from the examined variables. In the conclusion part implications for pedagogical practice are suggested and also suggestions for the further research in this field of study. Key words: animal migration, knowledge of migration, lower secondary school students, misconceptions about migration.

Secondary Students’ Knowledge on Birds and Attitudes towards Conservation: Evaluation of an Environmental Education Program

“…In a survey conducted with Bavarian adults, Enzensberger et al [36] described lower bird identification scores among young participants. Additionally, this illiteracy is also reflected in several misconceptions regarding the anatomy of birds, their behavior (e.g., migration), and bird-human interactions [37][38][39].…”