Lower Secondary School Pupils’ Knowledge and Attitudes Toward Butterflies and Mosquitoes.

Abstract

Butterflies are traditionally considered popular and favourite animals and conversely mosquitoes are perceived as unpopular animals, which can cause injury to humans in the form of bite. The purpose of this study is to compare attitudes and knowledge about the mosquito and the butterfly among elementary school pupils from Slovakia and Czech Republic. The sample size consisted of 614 pupils from six elementary schools with conventional style of education. The age of pupils was between 10 of 15 (x = 12.62; SD = 1.39). They attended lower secondary basic education (according to ISCED). Boys created 51.47 % (n = 316) and girls created rest of sample (n = 298). Pupils’ knowledge and attitudes toward mosquitoes and butterflies were measured on 5-point items of Likert type. The questionnaire consisted of 78 items, 39 for mosquito and 39 for butterfly, 26 items were focused on attitudes and 13 for knowledge, for each animal species. We found that the butterfly was relatively more positively perceived in comparison with the mosquito and pupils achieved better score about butterfly compared with the mosquito. Implication for the education and research are discussed in the last part of contribution