Perception of the cultural heritage of El Salvador and awareness proposal. Case: Tazumal Archaeological Site

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to identify the perception that the Salvadorean population has on the archaeological cultural heritage of the country in order to design an awareness program to address the findings. In this sense, a two phase design was implemented: The first phase presented a descriptive-exploratory research design based on the competencies taught in the subject of National Salvadorean History (Realidad Nacional), as part of the curricula of Universidad Tecnológica de El Salvador (UTEC, given its Spanish acronym), and which provided the necessary information to design the items that would be researched upon A baseline was structured through a cluster sampling applied to a student population of 320 individuals; this served as evidence of the lack of knowledge and interest people have shown towards the national cultural heritage. The second phase allowed for the design of a ludic learning environment based on the Archaeological site of Tazumal by using Minecraft Education. A quasi-experimental design was applied, comparing the incidence that the awareness on cultural heritage had. The results have shown that learning about cultural heritage by using said tool demonstrated marked differences in two of the researched categories. It has been concluded that the tool used had a positive impact on the competencies related to the knowledge on cultural heritage as well as in the attitude towards it.