Fourteen/fifteen-year-old students' decisions in a teaching proposal on the buying of a car

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the possible impact of a teaching proposal focused on the decision-making about the purchase of a car on the arguments used by secondary school students. Before and after participating in the teacher proposal, twenty-six students of secondary school (14-15 years old) participated and were asked to give their answers to two open tasks in which they had to make the decision to buy a car, in the first one only from an environmental point of view and in the second one to choose a family car. The results obtained show a remarkable improvement in the identification of the main factors to be taken into account in the purchase of a car, in the ability to justify their answers and decisions by showing a higher level of concreteness and in the evidence provided. There is also an improvement in students' environmental awareness.