Perception of sixth-grade students on the role of home economics subject in everyday life

Drnovšek, Nika (author), Lovšin Kozina, Francka (author)

The subject of Home Economics aims to equip students with the knowledge and skills needed to meet the diverse challenges of everyday life and achieve a high quality of life. This study explored sixth-grade students’ perceptions of the role of Home Economics in the following aspects of life: (1) cooperation, tolerance, and belonging (CTB); (2) work and time management (WTM); (3) environmental aspects of sustainable development (EASD); (4) prudent consumerism and finances (PCF) and (5) healthy nutrition (HN). A total of 120 sixth-grade students from four Slovenian primary schools participated in the survey.The results showed that students considered the role of Home Economics important for all five areasof life, with the highest ratings for environmental aspects of sustainable development (EASD) and the lowest for cooperation, tolerance, and belonging (CTB). There were no statistically significant gender differences, but male students rated the role of Home Economics slightly higher in relation to work and time management (WTM). The results provide deeper insight into how students perceive the role of Home Economics in developing everyday life skills and sustainable habits. These findings highlight that students particularly associate the role of Home Economics with environmental responsibility and practical life management, offering a valuable basis for further refining content and teaching strategies to better align Home Economics education with sustainable development goals.

• Language: English
• Keywords: home economics education, exploratory factor analysis, healthy life skills, primary school students, survey data
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: PEF - Faculty of Education
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 752-765
• Numbering: Vol. 83, no. 6
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-177768
• UDC: 373.32.016:64
• ISSN on article: 2538-7111
• DOI: 10.33225/pec/25.83.752
• COBISS.SI-ID: 263574531
• Publication date in RUL: 07.01.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Problems of education in the 21st century
• Shortened title: Probl. educ. 21st century
• Publisher: Scientia Socialis, Lithuania
• ISSN: 2538-7111
• COBISS.SI-ID: 293251840

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
• Description: A creative commons license that bans commercial use, but the users don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: veščine za zdravo življenje, gospodinjstvo, osnovnošolsko izobraževanje