Entwicklungen im Kindergarten und in der Grundschule

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag berichtet über einige übergreifende gesellschaftliche Rahmenentwicklungen im Bereich von Kindergarten und Grundschule (Schülerzahlen, mütterliche Erwerbst?tigkeit, Alleinerziehende. Gestaltungsautonomie) und diskutiert die m?glichen Auswirkungen dieser Entwicklungen auf zukünftige Ver?nderungen im Bereich von Kindergarten und Grundschule sowie die Verzahnung dieser beiden Bereiche.

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Summary Development in Kindergarten and Primary School The article considers some general societal structural developments in the areas of kindergarten and primary school (number of students in the classroom, maternal employment, single parenting, school autonomy). It also discusses the possible effects of these developments on future changes in the areas of kindergarten and primary school, as well as the integration of these two sectors.

     

Herkunft und Bildungserfolg beim Übergang vom Kindergarten in die Grundschule

In Germany, age and readiness for school are still the main criteria for school entry decisions. As a result some children start school earlier or later than scheduled. Since the 1970s it is well known that school entries not according to the cut-off date are coupled with the social and ethnic family background of these children and result in differential school careers. Thus an early or delayed school entry may be seen as the starting point of cumulative educational inequalities. New results from three series of interviews with parents, Kindergarten teachers, and school headmasters being part of the longitudinal study BiKS (“Bildungsprozesse, Kompetenzentwicklung und Selektionsentscheidungen im Vor- und Grundschulalter”, educational processes, competence development and selection decisions in pre- and primary school age) now reveal how these decisions develop. One of these qualitative studies is dedicated to school entry decisions in families with Turkish migration background. It is concluded that especially two measures can reduce these early inequalities: (1) better information for the parents and (2) early preventive support for all children making delayed school entries no more necessary.     

Volkswirtschaftliche Erträge wirksamer Bildungsreformen zur Reduktion der Zahl der Risikoschüler

The weak educational performance of a noteworthy share of students in Germany is not only a problem in itself, in the sense of a missing capability for self-dependent participation in society. It also has substantial consequences for the economy. This article provides projections of the economic returns that can be expected from hypothetical educational reforms that succeed in effectively reducing the number of at-risk students. We start by discussing existing theoretical and empirical research on the consequences of educational competencies for economic growth. On this basis, we perform projections of the magnitudes of additional economic wealth that can be expected from effective educational investments. Apart from a summary of existing results of long-run projections to 2090, we also report new projections for shorter time horizons. The results, which report the economic returns to effective educational reforms that reduce the number of at-risk students by state (Bundesland) in 10-year intervals from 2020–2050, may prove particularly relevant in political and budgetary discussions. The article closes with a discussion of results from the economics of education literature on which educational reforms might be expected to be successful in reducing the number of at-risk students.     

Physical health of today's school children

The health habits of today's children will largely determine their subsequent health as adults of the twenty-first century. Smoking, inactivity, poor dietary practices, drug and alcohol abuse, and other deleterious habits may develop early, yet exert lifelong influences. This paper contains a review of (a) statistics and research on major health status indicators in school-aged children, (b) behaviors that contribute to disease risk, and (c) school-based interventions designed to change risk behaviors and enhance wellness. Activities that can be initiated by classroom teachers are emphasized in the concluding section of the paper. Through early intervention, enhanced longevity and quality of life may be accomplished.     

Zur Erklärung der Teilnahme an hochschuldidaktischer Weiterbildung

In recent years, the need for didactic training in the field of higher education has become a focus of education policy. According to empirical evidence, however, only some of the university teaching staff participate in training opportunities. So far, only little empirical research has been undertaken to investigate the determinants of training intention in the area of university didactics. This article applies Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior (TPB), for the first time, to this specific context and highlights the importance of perceived behavioral control and attitude in explaining training intention. For subjective norm, however, no direct effect could be found. In addition to the TPB predictors, direct and indirect effects of previous training participation on intention as well as the effect of training context on perceived behavioral control were assessed. Adding past behavior to the model resulted in a direct effect on intention and an increase of explained variance. With regard to the question of the sufficiency of the TPB, possible explanations are discussed.     

Low-stakes performance testing in Germany by the VERA assessment: analysis of the mode effects between computer-based testing and paper-pencil testing

The German school system employs centrally organized performance assessments (some of which are called “VERA”) as a way of promoting lesson development. In recent years, several German federal states introduced a computer-based performance testing system which will replace the paper-pencil testing system in the future. Scores from computer-based testing are required to be equivalent to paper-pencil testing scores so that the new testing medium does not lead to disadvantages for students. Therefore, the current study aimed at investigating the size of the mode effect and the moderating impact of students’ gender, academic achievement and mainly spoken language in everyday life. In addition, the variance of the mode effect across tasks was investigated. The study was conducted in four German federal states in 2019 using a field experimental design. The test scores of 5140 eighth-graders from 165 schools in the subject German were analysed. The results of multi-level modelling revealed that students’ test scores in the computerized version of the VERA test were significantly lower than in the paper-pencil version. Students with a lower academic achievement were more disadvantaged by the VERA computerized test. The results were inconsistent regarding the interactions between testing mode and students’ gender and mainly spoken language in everyday life. The variance of the mode effect across tasks was high. Research into different subjects and in other federal states and countries under different testing conditions might yield further evidence about the generalizability of these results.

     

Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Task-dependent construction of mental models as a basis for conceptual change

Learning can be seen as a task-oriented process which often requires the reorganization of existing knowledge, usually referred to as conceptual change. This paper describes a theoretical framework for the analysis of conceptual change that considers conceptual knowledge as a generative cognitive tool for the creation of more specific mental representations — propositional symbolic structures and analog mental models. According to this view, conceptual change is based on a task-oriented interaction between these different kinds of mental representations. The assumption is made that it is possible to foster conceptual change by presenting to students well-defined tasks that stimulate the construction of elaborated mental models as well as an intensive interaction between these models and the corresponding propositional representations. In order to test this assumption an empirical study was conducted, in which subjects had to express their prior knowledge about a complex subject matter from the field of geography (time differences on the earth), which contained various conceptual deficits. The subjects were then randomly assigned to different groups who received the same learning material but had to solve different learning tasks requiring differently structured mental models. Afterwards, the subjects were asked to express their knowledge about the subject matter again and were tested for understanding with a comprehension test. The results support the view that a task-oriented interaction between propositional structures and mental models can help learners to evaluate the consistency of their conceptual knowledge. Accordingly, conceptual deficits result in the formation of mental models with an inadequate structure. Such deficits can be detected if the respective model is used in a sufficiently variable way, whereas they can remain unnoticed if it is used in a limited manner.     

Online Physics Lab Exercises—a Binational Study on the Transfer of Teaching Resources

In this paper, we present the design and the results of a comparative study that evaluated the success of a transfer of an online-teaching resource between two universities, one in Germany and one in the USA. The teaching resource is an online physics lab that has been used in the physics education of medical students in Germany since 2003. The online lab covers geometrical optics and the optics of the human eye using interactive screen experiments. It was translated and transferred to a university in the USA where it was used and evaluated with a group of pre-health students. In a cross-national study, students’ backgrounds (demographic data, selected cognitive abilities, previous knowledge, and self-concept in physics), students’ attitudes towards the online lab, and their learning gain were compared. The results show significant differences between the German and the US cohorts with regard to students’ backgrounds. Despite these differences, the outcomes are similar, with slightly higher leaning gains for the US students. Students’ attitudes towards the online lab are similar in both countries but tend to be more positive among the US students. The results indicate that the transfer of the online lab to another educational system was successful.