Browsing by Subject "ruokakriisi"

The 2000s have seen major changes to the upper secondary school curricula and matriculation examinations, with subjects like sustainable development becoming increasingly topical. In addition to the changes in content, required thinking skills have changed over the years. There is now an increased emphasis on the application of knowledge rather than on memorising it. This master’s thesis investigates what kind of thinking skills are required in upper secondary school in relation to sustainability, particularly the food crisis, and what thinking skills students use. The different thinking skills and levels of knowledge required can be analysed according to Bloom's revised taxonomy. This is a classification system that can be used to determine the levels of thinking skills and knowledge required in test questions, for example. In contrast, the maturity of the answers and the thinking skills students convey can be classified using the SOLO taxonomy. The study analysed the thinking skills and knowledge levels required for the spring 2020 Finnish matriculation examination (geography examination food-crisis related task 6) according to Bloom's revised taxonomy. In turn, students' answers (n=130) to the task were analysed according to the SOLO taxonomy. The answers were classified according to their maturity into the SOLO categories that were best represented by the answers. The classification was based on factors such as the consistency of the responses and the number of perspectives addressed. The thinking skills required for the test question were comprehension and analysis. The answers mainly reached the level of the multi-structural and pre-transitional phase, i.e. only a small number of answers reached the level required by the task. The results suggest that a large proportion of students are not able to demonstrate in their responses the use of the required thinking skills, and many do not have the required level of knowledge of the content of sustainable development.