Roles of assessment in secondary education: Participant perspectives

Performance pressure at both the institutional and individual level of secondary education has been identified as a pressure that is acknowledged all over Europe and raises questions about the extent to which agents in lower and upper secondary education interpret assessment in terms of either control or learning, or perhaps both. Drawing on empirical findings from two case studies in Denmark, the article focuses on the social roles of educational evaluation and assessment, and discusses the ways in which the local level interpretations of policy demands influence teaching and learning in secondary education. To enable an analysis of the understanding of different agents in the field, the article combines important sociological thinking with the basic distinction between assessment of programmes and assessment of individuals. Presuming that assessment practices bear the traces of the social structure that they both express and reproduce, the aim of this paper is to interrogate how the agents view and interpret such practices.     

Meaning Making with Multiple Representations: a Case Study of a Preservice Teacher Creating a Digital Explanation

Research in Science Education - The construction of dynamic multimedia products requires the selection and integration of a range of semiotic resources. As an assessment task for preservice...     

Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Editorial

     

Recognising Women in Environmental Education Pedagogy and Research: toward an ecofeminist poststructuralist perspective

In the past, women have been overlooked in most environmental education programmes through being subsumed into the notion of ‘universalized people’. However, women have a distinctive contribution to make to environmental education pedagogy and research which needs to be foregrounded. This article reports on research into the gaps and silences present in policies, pedagogy and research in environmental education from a feminist perspective. This research has been inspired by feminist critiques of critical pedagogy and the potentialities of feminist poststructuralist methodologies. In particular I focus on the silencing of marginalized perspectives in environmental education policy development, as well as in research conducted from the perspective of the dominant positivist research methodologies, and argue for the possibilities for new directions when poststructuralist pedagogies and research methodologies are used in environmental education.     

Who benefits from dyadic teacher–student interactions in whole-class settings?

To what extent can teacher–student dyadic interactions modify the hierarchy of student performances within a single class? To answer this insufficiently researched question, the authors conducted two parallel studies involving 33 Grade 5 classes in France (759 students) and 15 Grade 5 classes in Luxembourg (243 students). Interactions were observed during whole-class lessons. Posttest scores were analyzed using multilevel models controlling for five level-1 variables and two level-2 variables. The authors did not find any effect of dyadic interactions on relative student performance in mathematics or in language (French or German), in France or in Luxembourg. This result is interpreted in terms of both the public character of dyadic interactions in whole-class settings and the class management functions of these interactions.     

An interdisciplinary analysis of microteaching evaluation forms: how peer feedback forms shape what constitutes “good teaching”

Microteaching, a standard method for developing teaching skills, places high importance on peer feedback, which is guided by post-session feedback forms. This paper focuses on how feedback forms can shape what becomes understood as important to teaching. A sample of 10 microteaching evaluation forms drawn from North American postsecondary education institutions were examined using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Through a mixed-methods, interdisciplinary approach combining quantitative form classification based on distinct teaching elements with qualitative analysis drawing on Foucauldian and post-structural feminisms, key challenges are identified in the way that peer feedback forms may shape perceptions of what constitutes “good teaching”. We interpret that the close attention paid to the management of the body and the disproportionate focus on presentation and style may foreclose other modes of teaching beyond a conventional lecture-based class. This leads to a discussion on the ways in which the evaluation forms can be enhanced to provide a more effective educational tool.     

Lernen im Museum – theoretische Perspektiven und empirische Befunde

In this paper, the authors want to relate the issue of “learning in museums” with “aesthetic education”. The contribution is focused on the voluntary and self-organized learning in museums. The objects and the variety of their presentations in regard to the visitor are analyzed, focusing the polymorphism of learning processes, related to aesthetic experiences. This heterogeneous field is reflected from the perspective of visitor research, museology and educational psychology by reflecting the conceptualization of learning processes, their identification by empirical research and the intersection of the different perspectives. Finally, open questions and perspectives for further research concerning learning in museums are discussed.