Title: Representation of teaching strategies based on constructivism in social studies

Authors: Polona Jančič; Vlasta Hus

Addresses: Faculty of Education, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia ' Faculty of Education, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia

Abstract: The constructivist approach emphasises students' active roles in the education process, as well as their capabilities of developing their own knowledge by themselves based on experience and previous knowledge. This empirical study outlines research on the representation of the constructivist approach, focused on didactic strategies, conducted among 181 lower primary school teachers teaching social studies in Slovenia in the fourth or fifth grades in the academic year 2015/2016. The results have shown that teachers believe that they have a basic knowledge on constructivism and that in their opinion it is possible to teach social studies according to constructivism. Results also show that the selection of didactic strategies for individual content matches special didactic recommendations offered by the curriculum for social studies and that the social studies teachers most often decide to use experiential-, research- and problem-based learning. It is due to lack of time and too many students per class, constructivism-oriented teaching strategies are not used to a greater extent.

Keywords: primary school; teachers; social studies; constructivism; teaching strategies.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIL.2019.096535

International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 2019 Vol.25 No.1, pp.64 - 77

Received: 03 Nov 2017
Accepted: 04 Apr 2018
Published online: 05 Dec 2018 *

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