We are increasingly more often seeing the negative consequences of excessive human interference in nature. One of the most endangered taxa in the world are amphibians, toward which students usually have negative attitudes. Through our research we wanted to discover the attitudes of primary school students about the toad, the salamander, the green frog and the olm.
Our target group were students from grades 5 to 9 of the primary school. We decided for a sample of this kind because we were interested in the current state in Slovenian schools, particularly in the relationship that individual generations have towards amphibians and how often the amphibians are present as the theme of lectures in natural sciences and biology. The technique, which was used in our research, was the evaluation scale of opinions in the form of a five-level Likert scale. At the same time, we tested the students’ general knowledge about animals. The research showed that different factors influence the formation of students’ attitudes. Most important factors are student’s previous experience with amphibians, their age and the gender, followed by the frequency of visits to the nature and the student’s knowledge. Our research shows that formation of attitudes is least affected by the place of residence of a student.
The results of the research can be of help to teachers in planning the lectures in nature sciences and biology. Although the curricula include teaching contents which include amphibians, we noticed that there is not enough emphasis on their protection. By shaping positive opinions, the awareness about their role in the nature and the importance of preservation of individual species will be increased as well.
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