THE EFFECT OF PROBLEM-BASED AND INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING ON THE SCIENTIFIC LITERACY OF YOUNGER SCHOOL-AGE STUDENTS IN THE TEACHING OF NATURE AND SOCIETY

Early school age is marked by the introduction of various concepts about the world around us. It is crucial for children to develop clear understandings of these concepts in order to apply them in new situations. Functional knowledge fosters scientific literacy, which is of significant importance for individual development and is emphasized in Nature and Society classes through various teaching models. This study aims to examine the impact of problem-based and inquiry-based learning on scientific literacy in the context of teaching Nature and Society to younger school-age students. The research focused on content related to the planet Earth and Space—topics rich in scientific concepts and highly abstract. A parallel-group experiment was conducted with 224 fifth-grade students from two elementary schools in the Republic of Srpska. One group followed the inquiry-based learning model, another the problem-based model, and a control group was taught using traditional methods. Students were matched by gender, average grade in Nature and Society, and results of an initial test taken at the end of the fourth grade, and were randomly assigned to groups. After a seven-week experimental program, a final assessment was conducted. The results showed that students in both experimental groups outperformed those in the control group, with no statistically significant difference between the experimental groups. The study concludes that both problem-based and inquiry-based learning positively impact scientific literacy, highlighting the need for their wider application in the teaching of Nature and Society. Future research should explore these models across more diverse content areas to better understand their broader applicability.