Understanding the concepts of living beeing and animal among Slovenian and Gambian pupils

The focus of my thesis was on the understanding of biological concepts among Slovenian and Gambian pupils. My interest was whether there are differences in knowledge and understanding of the concept of living and animals. I also tried to find out if there are any differences in knowledge between Gambian children according to their sex and age. The theoretical part firstly describes the educational system in Gambia and presents their schooling by level of education. Then I focused on the basics of life and living by presenting the characteristics of living organisms and the animal kingdom in general. I also showed the relationship with nature and biology, which influences children's concepts about biology and their wrong perception. In the last part I defined the living and non - living world through the eyes of a child, their recognition of animals, and concluded with the description of knowledge about the concept of living and animals among Slovene children. The empirical part is based on a worksheet, which consists of two exercises. With the first I examined the understanding of the concept of living among Gambian children by recognising if the written words present the living or non-living world. The second part was testing exercise whether or not they understand the concept of animals, by selecting the correct picture. The worksheet was prepared based on a Slovenian study from 1995 (Piciga), although simplified and adapted for Gambian pupils. With the analysis on the worksheets I came to the conclusion that there is a great difference in knowledge between Slovenian and Gambian students, as our students achieved better results. Slovenian students have a better understanding of both biological concepts as they didn’t have any problems solving the worksheet, while the Gambian children’s knowledge yielded poorer results. The analysis also shows a difference of knowledge about animals between Gambian boys and girls - boys understand the concept of animals a lot better. Knowledge about biological concepts cannot be associated with age, as many of the younger Gambian pupils have a clearer idea about those concepts than older ones