Abstract

According to domestic and international surveys, one of the biggest problems in geography education in Hungary is the growing gap between students’ thorough theoretical knowledge and practical applicability. However, Hungarian teaching practice has been slow to respond to a process that has been going on for decades, during which the concept of valuable knowledge has changed significantly. While quality, well-applied and practical knowledge has gained high social and economic value (as opposed to directly applicable, passive knowledge), primary and secondary education and teacher training continue to struggle to bring about the necessary change. The present study discusses the effectiveness of a learner-centered, activity-based worksheet compilation developed by our research team for primary and secondary geography education to facilitate problem-based geography education. The results show that the short-term use of worksheets has already helped the experimental groups to solve their tasks more successfully than the control groups. The results of the pretest showed that there was only a small difference between the two groups attitudes toward geography, and the difference in mean performance was not significant in the evaluation test. However, the results of the follow-up showed that the short-term use of activity-based worksheets had already helped the experimental groups to complete the questionnaire tasks more successfully than the control groups. In the geographic post-test, the students in the experimental group significantly outperformed their peers in the control group (Mexp = 21.92 (SD = 5.83), Mctrl = 18.99 (SD = 6.31), t = 3.31, p = 0.001). The experimental effect size was found to be medium (eta-square = 5.6%).

Megjelent: 8th Internatonal Scientific Conference Geobalcanica 2022: Proceedings. Skopje, Macedónia: Geobalcanica Society (2022) pp. 421-430., 10 p.