Evaluation of the work of the Szabó Szabolcs Foundation 2023
The exploratory qualitative study involved classroom observations, interviews with chemistry teachers and focus group discussions with students in the chemistry classes studied.
Student progress was measured using a complex online background questionnaire and a series of tasks. The background questionnaire consisted of a block of questions assessing the socio-cultural background of the students, a 34-item psychological block, a so-called reference point task to assess creativity and critical thinking, and open-ended questions on the students’ experiences at school. The task set included multiple-choice questions, as used by the OECD CERI (Vincent-Lancrin, 2019) to assess students’ competencies in science and chemistry, and blocks of questions on the relevance of the science curriculum in schools and the pedagogical methodology experienced in science lessons. The input measurement was carried out in October 2023 and the output measurement in December 2023, with a total of 169 pupils in the three institutions completing both the input and output tests and questionnaires. Due to the lack of a control group and the short time frame, this part of the study is not so much an evaluation of the programme as an evidence-based development of a methodological framework for a - future - programme evaluation.
One of the results was that the children interviewed welcome interactive, participatory opportunities. They want lessons, demonstrations and competitions where they can show their own ideas and experiment more themselves. They would also like to do observations and try out simple interactions outside school, even at home, but this would require some knowledge of kitchen experiments, a toolkit to help them, educational material and some initial ideas.
