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Original scientific paper

Educational asymmetries in the making: Science Fair Competitions as Proxies of the Economic Development

Dejan Vinković orcid id orcid.org/0000-0001-9082-3921 ; Physics Department, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Split, Split, Croatia
Dunja Potočnik orcid id orcid.org/0000-0003-1256-2660 ; Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia


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Abstract

Croatia does not score well in the human development index, rate of
employment, or development of the high tech sector – to mention only a few indicators that hinder good prospects for improvement. Also, Croatian high school students are at the bottom of European rankings on performance in science and mathematics and their interest in career in science is declining. Croatia needs more
educated people, especially in the area of science and technology, and this can be achieved only if the youth become interested in science at an early age. Thus, science fair competitions are of an utmost importance for development of Croatia. This paper aims at investigating a relation of the Croatian counties’ development index
and their students’ participation rates in the science fair competitions. This is done by including two development indexes in search for the relation with the counties’ participation rates in biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics competition, and with a reference to a previous research on astronomy competition. As is revealed, there is a growing trend of interconnection of the development index and participation rates at science competitions in all disciplines.

Keywords

students’ achievement at science fair competitions; socio-economic index of development; students’ motivations; students’ interest in natural sciences

Hrčak ID:

55447

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/55447

Publication date:

7.7.2010.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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