DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2014.v02i02.014

Pages: 230-239

National Science Olympiad(NSO) is an initiative by the Science Olympiad Foundation(SOF) to promote development and excellence of science skills in students of grade 1 to 12 in India and few countries abroad. The 16th national Science Olympiad was held during November 2013 across many cities in India and a few countries abroad. The present study is an attempt to analyze the syllabus of National Science Olympiad for grade 1 and analyze the performance of grade 1 students of Karnataka in the 16th National Science Olympiad. The performance analysis is based on the Student Performance Report generated by the science Olympiad Foundation to all participants. Performance is analyzed based on the percentage of right answers section wise, the whole question paper and the state average marks of grade 1 students of Karnataka in the 16th NSO. The syllabus is analyzed for its prevalence of science concepts and its suitability for facilitation of science skills in grade 1 students. Hence, the major research tools are the Student Performance Report of a grade 1 participant as generated by the SOF and the NSO syllabus as available in the SOF website. The study is constrained by inherent methodological and theoretical delimitation that restrict its scope of generalization. The study has emerged with a few significant quantitative and qualitative findings on the performance of grade 1 students of Karnataka in the 16th NSO along with a few research suggestions on the syllabus of NSO for grade1. The syllabus analysis inspired the author to elucidate a framework for a model curriculum for grade 1 NSO.