Students’ performance in ethics assignments in the Finnish Matriculation Examination 2017–2021

Författare

Nyckelord:

ETHICS, PHILOSOPHY, MATRICULATION EXAMINATION, CORE CURRICULUM, FINLAND, NORMATIVE ETHICS, METAETHICS, AVERAGE PERFORMANCE, ASSIGNMENT, GRADING GUIDELINES

Abstract

What is difficult in ethics teaching for general upper secondary students? Can they achieve as good results in metaethics as in normative ethics? These questions should not be addressed without consideration of the various traditions of ethics teaching. Finnish students complete their studies in general upper secondary school by taking the Matriculation Examination. In recent years, a growing number of students has chosen to take an exam in philosophy but there is no systematic study on how students perform in the philosophy exam. This study is focused on those assignments within philosophy that concern ethics. How do students meet the key goals of ethics education defined in the Finnish National Core Curriculum 2015? The material of the study consists of the curriculum, ethics assignments, grading guidelines and the performance statistics in 2017–2021. The main observation is that the average performance is better in assignments in normative ethics than in metaethics, but in neither area of ethics does the average performance surpass half of the maximum points that is considered the threshold for a satisfactory performance. Implications for ethics teaching? We recommend that normative considerations be combined with metaethical considerations when necessary. However, we issue this recommendation having in mind the teaching of ethics in a philosophy classroom. The question for further research is whether the recommendation can also be reasonably applied to the teaching of ethics in other settings.

Författarbiografier

Mika Perälä, University of Helsinki

Mika Perälä is Docent in Theoretical Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, History and Arts Studies, University of Helsinki. His current research focuses on the history of philosophy, especially Aristotelian logic, psychology, and ethics, as well as the philosophy of education, and the teaching of ethics.

Eero Salmenkivi, University of Helsinki

Eero Salmenkivi is University Lecturer in Didactics of Philosophy and Culture, Worldview and Ethics, and Docent in Didactics of Philosophy at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki. His current research focuses on the philosophy, worldview and human rights education, and the question of powerful knowledge in education.

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Publicerad

2022-06-28