The Prospects of Transdisciplinary Approach to Promote Learners’ Cognitive Interest in Natural Science for Sustainable Development

Abstract

The use of transdisciplinary approach to promote learners’ interest in the acquisition of natural science at school provides new opportunities for a complex explanation of the phenomenon and improving the quality of the process of learning. The aim of the study is to explore the learners’ cognitive interest, personal participation and the approaches chosen by teachers from the perspective of transdisciplinary approach. The study characterises students’ subjective evaluations of their personal participation and cognitive interest in the subjects of biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics, and the approaches used by teachers. The participants were 9th grade students from 17 Latvian schools (536 respondents) with the average age of 15.3 (SD=0.63). The results of the study showed that students’ evaluations concerning their personal participation in the process of learning were contradictory. They devote little of their free time to the acquisition of science subjects. As to teachers’ activity, a variety of teaching approaches are used. According to students’ subjective evaluations, the constructivist learning approach corresponds to the trends of sustainable education, whereas the overall context in which the development of learners’ cognitive interest in the acquisition of natural science subjects takes place at school highlights issues concerning the sustainable development of the system and the prospects of using the transdisciplinary approach.

Journal of Teacher Education for Sustainability after the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development: Exploring for the Future

“…This testifies the significant increase in comparison with the previous analysis in years 2005ñ2014, when only 25% of papers contained some philosophical treatise of the subject matter. However, in the present analysis only seven papers demonstrate the attempts of more or less extensive elaboration on these concepts, theories and approaches (Boj‚re, 2016;Boj‚re & Skrinda, 2016;Fedosejeva, BoËe, Romanova, Iliko, & Ivanova, 2018;Jurgena, CÁdere, & Kevia, 2018;Pipere et al, 2015;Raus, 2016;SalÓte, Drelinga, Iliko, OÔehnoviËa, & ZariÚa, 2016). Against expectations almost all of these papers contained also some empirical research, indicating that these theoretical discourses mainly served as an extensive background for empirical research.…”

“…Similarly as in the previous analysis, the majority of articles (49 or 75.4%) represented some type of empirical papers, 9.2% of all papers integrated both novel theoretical ideas and empirical research (e.g., -ipilova, Ostrovska, Jermolajeva, Aleksejeva, & OÔeh-noviËs, 2017; SalÓte et al, 2016), while 15.4% of papers were conceived as theoretical elaboration on different subjects (e.g., Álvarez-García et al, 2015;Miedema & Bertram-Troost, 2015). With regard to the methodological priorities in empirical studies, exactly like in preceding exploration (Pipere et al, 2015), qualitative research was produced most often (29.2% of papers) (e.g., Carbach & Fischer, 2017;Ulavere & Tammik, 2017), followed by quantitative studies (26.2%) (e.g., Biasutti, De Baz, & Alshawa, 2016;Eslamian, Jafari, & Neyestani, 2017) and mixed methods research (20%) (e.g., Briede, 2016;Jurgena, CÁdere, & Kevia, 2018), showing certain increase in comparison with the previous period of analysis (16.7%). Only four papers (6.2%) contained case studies (e.g., Lekunze & Strom, 2017) in comparison with 13.9% in the previous analysis.…”

“…Eight papers (12.3% from 65) integrate the idea of transdisciplinarity, while two papers contain the deeper elaboration on this topic. The content analysis of paper ìThe Prospects of Transdisciplinary Approach to Promote Learners Cognitive Interest in Natural Science for SDî by Jurgena, CÁdere, and Kevia (2018) shows that the authors have used the term ìtransdisciplinarityî 31 time; the authors obviously try to suggest the foundations for their empiric research and scrupulously explain the transdisciplinary approach in the context of science and education, contextualizing this in the discourse of SD. Other paper containing ìtransdisciplinarityî in its title is ìSustainability from the Transdisciplinary Perspective: An Action Research Strategy for Continuing Education Program Developmentî by SalÓte et al (2016).…”

“…Next topic (the most popular in the previous study), was related to the various school subjects and areas (8 or 12.3%) like English as a foreign language, physics, mathematics, etc. This group can be illustrated by the papers ìUsing Analogies in Teaching Physics: A Study on Latvian Teachers Views and Experienceî (Jon‚ne, 2015) and ìThe Prospects of Transdisciplinary Approach to Promote Learners Cognitive Interest in Natural Science for SDî (Jurgena, CÁdere, & Kevia, 2018). Well-discernible topic revealing the teachersí views on different issues in education and ESD also was represented by eight papers, for instance, ìA Suggested In-service Training Model Based on Turkish Preschool Teachers Conceptions for SDî (Kabadayi, 2016) and ìAn Analysis of Transformation of Teaching and Learning of Japanese Schools that Significantly Addressed Education for SDî (Ichinose, 2017).…”

Semantic knowledge networks in education

“…In [15] concluded that students have a large non-used potential to understand more deeply the nature of science and acquire the knowledge important for their future lives and work.…”