Some Remarks About Implementation of Elective Subjects in High Schools in Serbia

Abstract

In this work we analyze a research on the attitudes of students towards elective subjects. This research was conducted in 2019, on an appropriate sample of second grade students from five high schools in Serbia. In generally, students in Serbia have high achievements and good marks in elective subjects. The results of this research shows that students have better opinion about first elective subject, which is probably a consequence of the fact that current offer of elective subjects in schools is not too wide and does not coincide too much with the interests of students. Although due to large differences in the number of choices of individual elective subjects, it is not possible to test the significance of differences in students' attitudes, trend in the results indicates that students have similar attitudes towards different elective subjects. Findings of this research suggest that there is a discrepancy between students' initial interests and expectations and what students actually have in elective subjects. Although, formally, students have possibility to change elective subject after the first grade, most students did not change elective subject, and most common reason for that is that this possibility did not exist in their school, or that they were not informed that it was possible. The most common problem that students report in connection with the implementation of election programs is high workload, not so good organization within the school regarding the schedule of classes, and nonsatisfactory way of teaching. Based on the results of this research, we conclude that there is a need for reevaluation of the compliance of set of goals, outcomes and proposed teaching methods and teaching methods that is needed in existing elective subject. Also, the results indicates the need for wider offer of elective programs, as well as better harmonization of the content of elective programs with the age of students and their interests. In this work, results of this research are shown in appropriate manner, using tables with numerical values and graphs. Some of students response are listed with full sentences, in order to show how do they realy feel and think about topics in those questions. In last part of work, we discuss all findings and give conclusions, without recommendations for future work.