A Comparison of Transferable Skills Development in Estonian School Biology at Gymnasium Level

The development of transferrable skills at the Estonian Gymnasium level, research is conducted in 44 different representative schools with 2048 students was investigated. The instrument was based on a relevant socio-scientific contextual situation of lactose intolerance that was presumed to test the abilities of transferring the biology knowledge into new situation. The tasks measured biological content knowledge, reasoning, divergent thinking, problem solving and socio-scientific decision making skills. Results revealed that the new curriculum focusing on the development of students’ competencies has not yet had a considerable effect. Results further indicated that the students’ ability to transfer their biological knowledge into new situations was quite poor and they did not increased significantly during the one year studies in gymnasium.