Auswirkungen einer Intervention auf die Auseinandersetzung und Arbeit mit Bildungsstandards bei Mathematik-Lehrkräften

The introduction of educational standards in Germany forced teachers to change their perspective in order to achieve competence-oriented teaching. The initial representative surveys throughout Germany indicated that a short time after the introduction of the educational standards, teachers in various school forms were still very slow to implement the idea of competence-oriented teaching in their everyday school life. This article presents the effects of a newly developed intervention programme in which mathematics teachers familiarised themselves with educational standards for the first time. The teacher data and the performance data of the pupils of the schools participating in the project are compared in a longitudinal study with the data of schools which were not included in the intervention programme. The results indicate that after the intervention programme has run for one year, mathematics teachers in the project schools are more competence-oriented in their teaching and reflect more intensively on the concept of the educational standards than mathematics teachers in the comparison schools.     

Einstellungen,Motivation und Selbstwirksamkeit von Lehrkräften

Teachers’ attitudes, motivation and self-efficacy are aspects of their professional competence affecting students’ motivation and learning via instructional behavior. In the present study, school type-specific differences in these teacher competencies and their relation to instruction when teaching with texts and integrated pictures are analyzed, further focusing on effects of school subject and teaching experience. Teachers (N?=?265) of primary school, lower and upper track secondary school filled in questionnaires. Primary school teachers were less intrinsically motivated to teach text-picture integration than secondary school teachers. They showed more negative attitudes towards texts with pictures than upper track teachers and avoided discussing the picture to a higher degree. All teacher characteristics predicted instructional behavior, further school type-specific effects of the subject occurred. The results provide starting points for teacher training and the potential for further research concerning the support of students in class.     

Frühpädagogische Ausbildungskonzepte in drei nordischen Ländern

In Germany, policy drives in recent years to implement first-time offcial early childhood curricula, coupled with new legislation guaranteeing entitlement by 2013 to a place in early childhood provision not only for three to six year olds but also for one and two year olds, are challenging the traditional parameters of professional work in early childhood services. Despite a flurry of initiatives by individual higher education institutions to introduce new forms of professional education/training for key workers, the required and desired professional profile is far from being clear. As one possibility of moving the discussion forward, this paper looks at current study routes and professional profiles of the core practitioners in early childhood centres in Denmark, Finland and Sweden. In each of these three Nordic countries the higher education study route leads to a bachelor degree. However. the professional profiles in each country differ considerably, ranging from a social pedagogy professional working outside the education system (Denmark), to an early childhood professional working both within a social welfare and education framework (Finland), or an early childhood and primary school professional operating within the education system (Sweden). Debating these varying profiles could be one way of clarifying both policy goals and the content of new higher education level initiatives in Germany.     

Führen verschiedene Inspektionskonzepte zu unterschiedlicher Akzeptanz und Verwendung der Ergebnisse durch Schulleitungen und Lehrkräfte?

In the past decade, variant inspection procedures have been implemented in the German federal states, setting different priorities in terms of objectives. For example, while Bremen focused only on school improvement, Berlin and Brandenburg focused equally on school improvement and control. Considering the differences in the inspection procedures, we investigate whether the variant designs lead to differing attitudes among school principals and teachers (N = 1589) towards the inspection procedure as well as to different school improvement activities. The results show more positive attitudes towards the inspection in Bremen. In all three federal states, cooperation and participation of students and parents increased after inspection. In Berlin and Brandenburg, schools’ self-evaluations increased. In the same two federal states, school documents and curricula were updated before the inspection, while in Bremen this occurred after the inspection. Teachers’ attitudes towards the inspection are slightly more critical in comparison with school principals.     

Fachdidaktisches Wissen von Lehrkräften und multiple Ziele im naturwissenschaftlichen Sachunterricht

Recent investigations in the field of mathematics have demonstrated that teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, as a central component of teachers’ professional knowledge, plays a significant role in high-quality instruction and students’ learning gains. The study presented here explores the significance of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge for gains in pupils’ understanding of scientific concepts and for motivational and self-related outcome criteria in primary science education in Germany. It reports on findings from a study with a pre-post-design comprising 60 primary school teachers and their 1326 pupils. Teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and pupils’ learning gains as well as motivational and self-related outcome criteria were directly assessed with paper-and-pencil tests. Two-step models controlling for several relevant variables at the individual and the class level were specified. Results revealed a substantial positive effect of the measured pedagogical content knowledge on pupils’ achievement gains as well as on pupils’ situational interest and perceived competence.     

Access for All? Sozialinvestitionen in der frühkindlichen Bildung und Betreuung im europäischen Vergleich

The importance of investing in early childhood is widely acknowledged in policy circles. Particularly formal Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is seen as key to creating equal opportunities and combating poverty by increasing educational achievement of children and supporting parental employment. This social investment perspective has in recent decades supported the rapid development and expansion of ECEC in most European countries. However, the international social investment discourse masks fundamental differences in European ECEC systems and detracts attention from the way ECEC is embedded in the wider welfare regime of a country. This paper critically examines the ‘social investment potential’ of ECEC systems by comparing an early social investment country, Sweden, with two ‘late movers’, the UK and Germany. It argues that investing in ECEC is not per se a panacea for social inclusion. To the contrary, if not combined with other, partly ‘traditional’ equality measures both in education and social protection, ECEC investment may have the opposite effect of increasing social inequality.     

Risikokonstellationen in der frühen Kindheit: Auswirkungen biologischer und psychologischer Vulnerabilitäten sowie psychosozialer Stressoren auf kindliche Entwicklungsverläufe

Risk factors in early childhood have short as well as long term effects on child development. Researchers distinguish between vulnerabilities, which are biological predispositions and psychological characteristics of the child, and stressors, which are psychosocial circumstances in the environment. Crucial vulnerabilities and stressors are described and evaluated in the following essay. The number of influencing risk factors seems to be the best predictor to evaluate the impact on the developmental outcome. Thus, a combination of cumulative long lasting risk factors has the most negative impact on child development. The qualities of parent-child interactions and the enrichment of the (home) environment are the only factors which have a direct impact on child development. Therefore, interventions to minimize the influence of risk constellations should begin early, be long lasting and should focus on assuring a secure relationship for the child, in or outside the family.     

Performanzfortschritt in der Lehrerausbildung durch die Arbeit an eigenen video- und textbasierten Unterrichtsfällen? Eine Interventionsstudie zur Verbesserung des Feedbacks bei angehenden Sportlehrkräften

This intervention study examines the different effects that work on video- or text-based teaching cases has on improving feedback-related performance (dependent variable) for trainee PE teachers. Within a teaching-learning arrangement, one group (n?=?24) worked with video-based teaching cases while another group (n?=?9) worked with text-based ones. In addition, both groups completed a school practicum. Additionally, a control group (n?=?23) completed the practicum, without any teaching case intervention. The quality of the feedback-related performance of the trainee PE teachers was recorded using video vignettes both before and after the respective interventions and then evaluated on the basis of an external assessment (expert rating). The results show that the work on video- and text-based teaching cases was effective, but that the videobased procedure had more of an impact, with a high level of practical significance. The control group was unable to improve on the basis of the placement within a school. The results demonstrate their usefulness for future training and competence diagnostics.     

Ermittlungs- und Begründungspflicht bei divergierenden Gutachten im Habilitationsverfahren

In einem Fall, in dem durchwegs divergierenden Auffassungen in den vorliegenden Gutachten und Stellungnahmen zur Frage der wissenschaftlichen bzw künstlerischen Qualit?t der von der BF vorgelegten Arbeiten sowie zur Frage ihrer didaktischen F?higkeiten von den Mitgliedern der Habilitationskommission vertreten werden, ist es Aufgabe der Habilitationskommission, im Zuge der Beweiswürdigung den "inneren Wahrheitsgehalt" der in den einzelnen Gutachten und Stellungnahmen vertretenen Auffassungen zu ermitteln und – erforderlichenfalls nach Einholung erg?nzender Ausführungen – "auf Grund der Gutachten und Stellungnahmen" eindeutige Aussagen zu treffen.     

Kulturelle und künstlerische Aktivitäten Studierender

What are the fields of cultural or artistic activities of higher education students in Germany? To what extent are they related to the studies? Do the parents have some influence on those cultural activities? Due to a lack of data, questions of this type could not be answered yet. Now this is possible based on a survey conducted for the national education report “Education in Germany 2012” whose specific thematic focus was arts education. A high share of nearly two thirds of all students report own cultural or arts acitvities. The rate of active students varies by field of studies and gender. Differences with respect to kind of degree or study period are rather low. While studying 25?% of students give up former cultural activities. Remarkably high is the effect of parental cultural activities that exceeds the impact of the parent’s level of education. The parent’s example also has an influence on the field of the student’s activities.     

Subjektive Theorien von Lehrkräften über ungünstige Faktoren in der Bildungsbiografie von Schülerinnen und Schülern – Wie konstruieren Lehrkräfte den Übergang von der Schule in die Berufsausbildung?

The transition from school to apprenticeship marks a turning point in the life of teenagers because it can affect the course of their professional careers. Currently, this transition appears to be difficult for many older teenagers. Science deals with factors and conditions which contribute to the complication of this transition process. Teachers and their beliefs play an important role in this process but are largely neglected in the literature. Research has shown that there is a dialectic and dynamic interaction between knowledge and action (i.?e. knowledge is the basis for action). Thus, it is important to investigate the knowledge and beliefs of teachers about the transition from school to apprenticeship. It is documented that beliefs of professionals are underdeveloped in some areas in comparison to the epistemic truth status of scientific knowledge. A certain type of teacher develops an independent and creative professional-action strategy based on his/her beliefs.     

Kämpfen gegen Windmühlen und reale Mächte: William Lottigs Tagebuch (1919–1921) als Ausdruck der politischen,pädagogischen und schulinternen Machverhältnisse in einer Hamburger Gemeinschaftsschule zu Beginn der 1920er Jahre

In his daily journal on the founding of the public experimental school, a “community school” at the Berliner Tor in Hamburg between spring 1919 and September 1921, Lottig describes the everyday issues confronting the principal of the “new school” at that time. These concern classroom instruction, teachers, parents, external pressures on the Berliner Tor-School, the relationship with the school administration, political issues prevalent in Hamburg at that time, ideological and philosophical debates as well as personal and family relationship problems, all of which Lottig describes in his journal. Lottig also noted the reasoning underpinning the development of the school experiments: the “old” schools in Hamburg had been closed, and the state had in their place established experimental schools. The journal clearly records the difficulties, issues and successes of a principal of one of the newly established community schools (Lebensgemeinschaftsschulen), which had been established as experimental schools. A perusal of the diary indicates that Jakob Robert Schmid’s sole and up to now only one known analysis of the journal comes off as biased and misleading. Schmid, professor of education at the University of Berne, had, at the beginning of the 1930s, only perused and analysed those portions of Lottig’s journal in which Lottig describes the rather turbulent if inspiring – and yet chaotic – operation of the community school in its first two years. While Schmid analysed these portions, he did not consider Lottig’s other, more favourable and constructive comments. Schmid also did not explain his one-sided selection of journal passages. Schmid brands Lottig and his team of teachers as educational novices and classifies the Berliner Tor-School as an “anti-authoritarian” institution, an experimental school like any other school experiment which overshoots the mark, not being educationally and institutionally meaningful. A more objective and principled approach in examining Lottig’s journal would have revealed that Lottig and his teachers were well aware of the main issue confronting the school, an issue that Schmid would also have found relevant: the relation of freedom and compulsion, within a setting that Lottig wanted to revitalise, to productively equilibrate without employing the customary disciplinary instruments. Lottig furthermore again and again points emphatically to the “growing pains” of all alternative schools (even when regulated by the state as an experimental school), whose goal it had been, to establish, even under difficult circumstances, a “new school-type” not utilising the traditional instruments of discipline, instruction and school management. This proves that Lottig was neither an educational ignoramus nor unaware of the basic issue of classroom instruction: how one can instruct with or without compulsion. Lottig’s goal had always been – and this Schmid also disregarded – to replace traditional, imposed, mandated or even self-imposed rules and regulations by new, commonly worked out rules. Lottig’s journal is a good example of the steadfast, unrelenting and energy-sapping aspiration of a school principal to balance the relation of school management versus a school’s self-development under the given circumstances. In addition, Schmid’s misinterpretation is a good example of how an observer, who hardly knew the Berliner Tor-School, would misuse this historical source by means of a biased interpretation to further his own views on scholastic education, views that Lottig himself would have preferred to provocatively examine – Schmid’s “authoritative pedagogy”, which goes beyond all authoritarian and non-authoritarian educational policies. What, then, would Lottig have recorded in his journal about a meeting with Schmid?     

Erfassung von Schülerselbsteinschätzungen zum schulbezogenen Sozial- und Lernverhalten – Validierung der Schülereinschätzliste für Sozial- und Lernverhalten (SSL)

The Self-Report Checklist for Social and Learning Behaviour (SSL) is a student questionnaire comparable to the Teacher Report Checklist for Social and Learning Behaviour. The SSL assesses ten facets of social and learning behaviour using self-reports by students. The present study of 1267 students aged 9 to 19 years examines the factorial structure, psychometric properties and validity of this questionnaire. The reliabilities (Cronbach’s Alpha, retest) of all ten scales were sufficiently good and the postulated factorial structure was found in exploratory as well as in confirmatory factor analysis. Correlations of SSL-scales with scales of the Differencial Aggression Questionnaire and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire as well as with grades in German and mathematics indicated mainly convergent and divergent validity. Furthermore, positive correlations were found to corresponding teacher ratings.     

Entwicklungen und Auswirkungen der Schulprofilierung an allgemeinbildenden Schulen in ausgewählten europäischen Ländern und Implementationsperspektiven für Deutschland

Developments and consequences of school profiling in general-education schools in selected European countries and perspectives for implementation in Germany – The development of a school programme, e.g. by way of forming a profile in the field of music or sports, is part of everyday school life in many European state and private schools today and even statutory in some countries and states. This paper focuses on the background and the significance of this development in school politics but also on the potential and the challenges which come with the profile formation of schools on an individual as well as systemic basis. Furthermore, the author introduces and discusses examples for the profile formation of schools and classes by looking at concrete projects. After that, recommendations are given for school programme work in individual schools. The focus is especially on German-speaking countries such as Germany, Austria and Switzerland.     

‘Methode’ als Zauberwort für Schulentwicklung: die Wahrnehmung Pestalozzis im philosophischen,schulpädagogischen und bildungspolitischen Diskurs des beginnenden 19. Jahrhunderts,aufgearbeitet anhand dreier ausgewählter Beispiele

Pestalozzi’s international reputation relates closely to the ‘invention’ of his method. Until now historiography has characterized the Burgdorf and Yverdon period as the culminating point of Pestalozzi’s career as educator. This traditional approach causes a rather partial view of this period of his life. However, contextualizing primarily Pestalozzi’s correspondence leads to a new insight: his school projects are strongly connected with other private Swiss or European projects on subjects such as school development and school reform.     

Schlechte Zeiten für Bildung: Globalisierung,Deregulierung und Privatisierung im Ländervergleich Türkei und Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Because of the forced reductions in state activities that are observed worldwide as a result of the increasingly unrestricted growth of competition, national public institutions of education are under escalating pressure. Both in basic and in higher education, a creeping process of privatization is occurring, while more and more of the costs of education are being passed on to the citizen. This applies to both industrialized countries such as Germany, and to Turkey. The international dimension of this subversive process, which is also drastically affecting the prospects for academic research, is seldom critically addressed in eduational discourse. Instead, the field is dominated by a high-brow attitude to the globalization process which sees it as helping to promote world citizenship.     

Übereinstimmung,Variabilität und Reliabilität von Schülerurteilen zur Unterrichtsqualität auf Schulebene

Using student ratings to assess instructional quality of schools should fulfill three requirements: (1) an appropriate level of inter-rater agreement within schools, (2) systematic variance of student ratings between schools, (3) an adequate reliability level of aggregated student ratings. Using international PISA-data (2000–2012; 81 countries, over 55,300 schools, over 1.3 million 15-year olds) this study investigated how these requirements were met regarding indicators of instructional quality (classroom management, cognitive activation, individual learning support). We computed the interrater agreement index r_WG(J), as well as the intraclass correlations ICC(1) and ICC(2). Our results showed that (1) student ratings demonstrated a moderate or strong level of agreement for most indicators of instructional quality and (2) instructional quality assessed by students varied systematically between schools. Yet, (3) reliability of aggregated student ratings was not sufficient in many countries. We discuss these results regarding conventions to evaluate agreement, variability, and reliability of student ratings at the school level.