Do they know what they know? Accuracy in teacher candidates' self-assessments and its influencing factors

Although self-assessing one's knowledge is an integral part of a teacher's professional development, little is known about the accuracy of teacher candidates' self-assessments. In particular, not much attention has been paid to their self-assessment accuracy assessed on an individual level. Using measures from research on metacognition, we investigated the accuracy and bias of 513 mathematics teacher candidates who were tested in and self-assessed their professional knowledge in the three core domains of mathematical content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. In addition, we examined the consistency of self-assessment accuracy across the three knowledge domains and its relation to personal characteristics such as cognitive ability, personality traits and occupational self-efficacy. Results showed that in all three domains of professional knowledge, most teacher candidates were either over- or underconfident in their knowledge and unaware of their strengths and weaknesses. Cognitive ability reduced the risk of being overconfident, whereas self-efficacy was predictive of overconfidence. The Big Five personality traits were not systematically connected to self-assessment accuracy, and variance in self-assessment accuracy is still to be explained by further research. We address shortcomings of measures that are commonly used in self-assessment research and advocate for the use of metacognitive methods in future studies that focus on teacher self-assessments.     

Modi der Besonderung als Distinktionspraxen im Elementarbereich

As a new phenomenon in German ECEC, commercial high-cost childcare centers are subject of controversial debates. The expansion of this type of early care provision raises concerns about the possible reinforcement of social inequalities in early childhood. However, mechanisms of distinction within these institutions cannot be matched to such criteria as type of organization or features of the facilities. In this paper we argue that the interactions between professionals and parents have to be focused as crucial sites of the production of distinction. Using data from an ongoing qualitative research project we elaborate on three modes of interactive production of particularization. Based on these findings, we show that a reconstruction of the unique organizational cultures is indispensable to address questions of new vertical differentiations within the field of ECEC institutions.     

Automated LED tracking to measure instantaneous velocities in swimming

In this paper a video-based method to automatically track instantaneous velocities of a swimmer is presented. Single cameras were used to follow a marker (LED) attached to the body. The method is inspired by particle tracking techniques, traditionally used in the field of fluid dynamics, to measure local velocities of a fluid flow. During the validation experiment, a white LED was attached to the hip of a swimmer together with a speedometer. A swimmer performed four different stroke types. The velocity profiles using LED tracking were captured and showed less noise than the speedometer measurements. Only at times when the marker disappeared above the water surface due to body role in front crawl and backstroke swimming did the LED tracking fail to capture the athlete’s motion. The algorithm was tested in a 2D case with a single LED to illustrate the proof of principle, but should be suitable for implementation in a 3D analysis or multiple LED analysis.