Comparison of educational effect of block-scheduled and longitudinally-scheduled course focused on human parasites
Abstract
There are many themes which can be part of different contexts in ordet to reach the best learning achievements. This is even more true after curriculum changes and introduction of individual school plans in Czech Republic.
Parasitology has traditionally been part of zoology. We were interested in the result of including the topic "human parasites" in the human biology.
We compared block and longitudinal (9 months) scheduling of human parasites topic from the knowledge point of view. This comparison was done in two parallel grammar school classes (12 years old pupils).
One class had block schedule for the topic "human parasites" (3x45 min) whereas the second had the same subject matter in several months. The total time in the two classes was the same.
Pupils' knowledge and attitude towards parasites was tested by pre-test and post-test. The hypothesis "Pupils who have block schedule will have better knowledge (score in post-test) compared to the pupils with longitudinal schedule" was tested by ANCOVA.
This hypothesis was not supported by our data. All pupils had better scores in the post-tests compared to pre-tests.
The results in the post-tests can be explained by the results in the pre-tests and they do not depend on the class.