SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES ON INCORPORATING BIOLOGY OLYMPIAD TASKS INTO BIOLOGY LESSONS

Tasks used in the Biology Olympiad (BiO) appear to be promising alternatives to traditional teaching tasks in biology education, as they frequently incorporate inquiry-based elements. This makes them a valuable resource for increasing students’ exposure to inquiry activities during classroom instruction. However, for teachers to effectively implement BiO tasks in their teaching practice, it is essential to identify and understand which aspects of these tasks pose the greatest difficulties for students. Therefore, tasks from the BiO (n = 5) were integrated into biology classes. Subsequently, a questionnaire revealed that students (n = 232) encountered the most significant challenges during the solution process with individual inquiry skills, such as inferring answers from comparisons, justifying claims, and drawing conclusions, compared with non-inquiry difficulties and practical biology skills. Furthermore, the research results showed that the majority of participants (77.2 %) positively perceived the inclusion of BiO tasks in biology lessons. Overall, if teachers consider the content difficulty of the tasks, incorporating BiO tasks into the teaching process could be a way to enhance students' inquiry skills during biology classes, and learning would be perceived as more attractive to the students. Keywords: biology education, biology teaching tasks, inquiry-based science teaching and learning, Biology Olympiad, questionnaire-based research