INFLUENCE OF STUDENTS' BIOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE IN SOLVING COMPLEX COGNITIVE TASKS

Sa？etak The aim of this study was to determine the conceptual understanding of Biology curriculum content on a sample of written tests designed for the County and State level Biology competitions for 7th grade students in the school year 2014/15. The sample consisted of 148 best solved tests, i.e. tests with 75% success rates, plus 11 tests from the state level. Written tests contained tasks designed in accordance with the recommendations for Biology test building. Data was analyzed (SPSS 17) with respect to defined learning outcomes in accordance with macro conceptual framework of Biology, quality assessment tasks, influence of the tasks on the level of discrimination, compliance with the 7th grade prescribed Biology curriculum, how it relates to everyday life, general culture, and content of other natural science subjects. The results showed no significant difference in performance with regard to gender, and that students are most successful in solving tasks of cognitive level 1 regardless of task difficulty level. Success rate in problem solving decreases with higher cognitive level tasks and higher levels of difficulty. According to the metric analysis, 65% of the tasks are of the adequate difficulty level and 57% are discriminatory. The result analysis shows that the level assessment and the task difficulty level are greatly influenced by the experience of the test compilers