Special Presentation by Dr. Regina Soobard, University of Tartu, Estonia

Title: Research in science education – experiences from University of Tartu Science Education Centre

Abstract: Estonia has competence-based curriculum since 2011 and Estonian 15-year old students have high overall scores in the science component of the PISA study. At the same time, they are not interested in science-related careers and relatively few students achieve the highest two levels of scientific literacy. To investigate situation in high school (grade 10-12), we developed a test for scientific literacy and results showed – in the end of grade 12, few students demonstrated competences needed in higher scientific literacy levels. We have found that there is a need to provide students with opportunities to engage more deeply and meaningfully within their science learning content and competence development. All this can be linked with higher science-related career awareness through developing context-based scenarios.