Slovenia

The history competition

In 1999, members of the Slovene Sociological Association, the Institute of Education, and the Historical Association of Slovenia collaborated and started a new, modern history competition for students of secondary schools, named "Srečanju srednješolskih raziskovalk in raziskovalcev novejše slovenske zgodovine". It aims at to enhancing students research work and supporting the students in developing their research skills. This is not a completely new approach in Slovenia, since there are such competitions in different fields including the humanities and the social sciences. The difference is that the organisers chose the form of the contest at the national level, while all others were organised locally.

Requirements

The terms of participation in our competition require that only students of secondary schools can participate, that contributions must deal with the given topic, and that between one and three students can co-operate (teamwork is encouraged), producing 16 to 32 pages per student which have to be submitted on time. We give students guidelines on how to research and on how to write the final report. We also try to spark their imagination and point them in the right direction. The most important part of task-based research is a careful choice of research questions. Students should possess knowledge of basic concepts and scientific theories. Clear definitions of a problem, the research goal, and concrete ways of reaching the goal are of great importance. We ask students to choose the method that allows best for collecting data and information and for processing and analysing data and information associated with their research. Since no research question is simple, the answers are not simple either. We emphasise that students must show clearly which expectations were confirmed and which were not. Conclusions must be supported by relevant data and information gathered during their research.

Jury

The jury consists of university professors and secondary school teachers. Each submission is assessed by one university professor and one secondary teacher. When their opinions differ too much we choose another professor to assess it again. The third assessment is final. The organisational committee establishes criteria for the assessment. These criteria include the quality of the definition of the research problem, the selection and use of methods, conclusion and presentation. Each criteria is divided into three levels. Professors and teachers follow these criteria.

Awards

We award authors of the three best research papers - this means that three to nine students can be awarded, depending on how many students work on one research paper. Since we do not have many participants (yet), we distinguish only between the ones who are awarded and those who are not and we do not rank them. At the ceremony the awarded students present their research.

The location of the awards ceremony varies from year to year because we do not have a proper place of our own.