The Durability of Formal Knowledge and Its Restructuring During Lifelong Learning

Abstract

Formal science education is the last stage of acquiring scientific knowledge for most people. They rely on the knowledge acquired at school for the rest of their lives. Therefore, it is important that formal education changes students' colloquial knowledge into scientific knowledge and is correct. The study decided to test three situations. In the first one, it was examined whether formal education actually displaces the colloquial knowledge of students. In the second, the level of knowledge acquired at school was compared with the level of extracurricular knowledge. The third examined the durability of knowledge acquired at school, i.e. can school knowledge be changed, e.g. through advertising or popular science publications? The main hypothesis of the research was the assumption that school knowledge eliminates erroneous, clichéd beliefs and is permanent over time. The study tested chemical knowledge related to cooking. 472 people participated in the study and an online questionnaire was used. The research built on previous research on the correlation between scientific knowledge and non-scientific beliefs and pedagogical theories on knowledge transfer. The obtained results did not confirm the main hypothesis. Formal school education turned out to be less effective than non-formal education. It seems, therefore, that school education should not focus on facts that students forget and that change during their informal(lifelong) education. Rather, it should focus on the ability to independently construct knowledge.