Teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of teaching Geosciences in Italian upper secondary school

Abstract

Earth Sciences teaching should play a primary role in the educational system to train citizens with the geoscientific Literacy in order to make conscientious and sustainable decisions. However, studies have shown that this discipline in the last years has suffered a significant decline in the international and Italian school systems. Therefore, a survey was conducted among a sample of 60 Sicilian high school teachers between April and June 2022, in order to find out how they perceive the quality of Geosciences teaching and what they need to teach this discipline more effectively. The critical aspects in Geosciences teaching emerged from the survey have been summarised in four points: the number of hours devoted to Geosciences; the teachers’ specific academic background; teacher training; the didactic-organisational structure of the Geosciences curriculum. The results of this survey could contribute: (i) to encourage the use of inductive didactic approaches in order to improve the quality of the teaching-learning process; (ii) to provide foods for thought for the designing of Earth Sciences curriculum in the Italian secondary school; (iii) to stimulate a wider educational training offer of Geosciences. Some considerations emerged from the analysis of the questionnaire answers can be generalised to the national situation. Despite the limited extension of the sample, the survey represents a first attempt to focus on the situation of Earth Sciences in Sicilian school and to raise the interest of the academic geological community and the educational authorities for the point of view of teachers.