Cognitive-linguistic skills and human nutrition in the initial training of secondary school teachers

Abstract

The objective of this essay is to learn about the cognitive-linguistic skills required by the evaluation questions suggested by teachers in training, with regards to certain key ideas associated with human nutrition. It also intends to find out to what extent these teachers identify the aforementioned skills in the suggested questions and how much importance they give to the latter. 225 questions were analysed and they were suggested by 37 students studying for a Masters in Secondary School Teaching at the University of La Coruña. This was done during a training activity included in a class about evaluation. The results show that even though the future teachers bear the various skills in mind, they establish differences according to the key idea under consideration. However, they are not always conscious of the skill they are requesting in the questions they suggest. In any case, the value they give to said questions is more conditioned by the specific content than by the skill they are requesting. All this suggests the need for teacher training to insist on the use of various cognitive-linguistic skills relating to specific subjects.