Learning experimentation through science fairs

Experiments are essential for both doing science and learning science. The aim of the German youth science fair, Jugend forscht, is to encourage scientific thinking and inquiry methods such as experimentation. Based on 57 interviews with participants of the competition, this study summarises students’ conceptions and steps of learning about experimentation, taking into account age disparities. Five distinct subdomains of learning were identified in which learning processes may occur. These subdomains are procedure, purpose, material, control, and time. The three separate age groups used slightly different concepts but all the participants took the same or very similar steps of learning independent of their age. Two main reasons for conceptual developments could be detected: Firstly, the participating students had the opportunity to work using methodology similar to the commonly accepted scientific path of knowledge. Secondly, due to communication processes during the competition, a purposive reflection of their own project was promoted. With respect to different educational levels, experimentation proves to be a complex scientific framework that will be learnt step by step throughout students’ education. We therefore argue for a stronger anchoring of research experiments embedded in open or authentic inquiry to be included in science lessons at school.     

Educational Rehabilitation in the German Democratic Republic

AN OVERVIEW of educational rehabilitation of persons with disabilities in the German Democratic Republic is given. The authors describe the education system, the health and welfare services as well as the forms of training of special educators for persons with disabilities. The topics are discussed in the context of the theoretical background and of the current political changes in the country.     

The Effects of Collaborative Care of Living Animals in Biology Lessons on Students’ Relatedness Toward Their Teacher Across Gender

Research in Science Education - The transition from elementary school to the upper grades can lead to ambiguous feelings toward the new, male teachers. This study investigated whether collaborative...     

Understanding the Greenhouse Effect by Embodiment – Analysing and Using Students' and Scientists' Conceptual Resources

Over the last 20 years, science education studies have reported that there are very different understandings among students of science regarding the key aspects of climate change. We used the cognitive linguistic framework of experientialism to shed new light on this valuable pool of studies to identify the conceptual resources of understanding climate change. In our study, we interviewed 35 secondary school students on their understanding of the greenhouse effect and analysed the conceptions of climate scientists as drawn from textbooks and research reports. We analysed all data by metaphor analysis and qualitative content analysis to gain insight into students' and scientists' resources for understanding. In our analysis, we found that students and scientists refer to the same schemata to understand the greenhouse effect. We categorised their conceptions into three different principles the conceptions are based on: warming by more input, warming by less output, and warming by a new equilibrium. By interrelating students' and scientists' conceptions, we identified the students' learning demand: First, our students were afforded with experiences regarding the interactions of electromagnetic radiation and CO₂. Second, our students reflected about the experience-based schemata they use as source domains for metaphorical understanding of the greenhouse effect. By uncovering the—mostly unconscious—deployed schemata, we gave students access to their source domains. We implemented these teaching guidelines in interventions and evaluated them in teaching experiments to develop evidence-based and theory-guided learning activities on the greenhouse effect.     

Content-Related Knowledge of Biology Teachers from Secondary Schools: Structure and learning opportunities

Teachers’ content-related knowledge is a key factor influencing the learning progress of students. Different models of content-related knowledge have been proposed by educational researchers; most of them take into account three categories: content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and curricular knowledge. As there is no consensus about the empirical separability (i.e. empirical structure) of content-related knowledge yet, a total of 134 biology teachers from secondary schools completed three tests which were to capture each of the three categories of content-related knowledge. The empirical structure of content-related knowledge was analyzed by Rasch analysis, which suggests content-related knowledge to be composed of (1) content knowledge, (2) pedagogical content knowledge, and (3) curricular knowledge. Pedagogical content knowledge and curricular knowledge are highly related (r_latent?=?.70). The latent correlations between content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge (r_latent?=?.48)—and curricular knowledge, respectively (r_latent?=?.35)—are moderate to low (all ps?<?.001). Beyond the empirical structure of content-related knowledge, different learning opportunities for teachers were investigated with regard to their relationship to content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and curricular knowledge acquisition. Our results show that an in-depth training in teacher education, professional development, and teacher self-study are positively related to particular categories of content-related knowledge. Furthermore, our results indicate that teaching experience is negatively related to curricular knowledge, compared to no significant relationship with content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge.     

Differential effects of home and preschool learning environments on early language development

The present study is based on longitudinal data from a German early childhood education and care (ECEC) governmental initiative assessing children's grammatical and vocabulary development between 2;6 and 4;0 years (N = 1,331), quality of the home learning environment and quality of the preschool setting. Results showed that the quality of the home learning environment predicted development in grammatical skills, but not in receptive vocabulary at age 4, while the effects of preschool process quality showed similar relative impacts on both language outcomes. Further analyses revealed effects of accumulated advantages of preschool quality for children from medium‐ and high‐quality home learning environments in their vocabulary development. The results are compared with previous findings from the German ECEC context and discussed with respect to implications for policy efforts to improve ECEC quality and ways in which both learning environments act together on children's development.     

Students’ motivation in biology lessons—can student autonomy reduce the gender gap?

When it comes to biology lessons in Germany, girls generally exhibit higher levels of self-determined motivation than boys. Previous research suggests that fostering student autonomy could be a way to effectively address this gender gap. To investigate gender-related effects in biology education, a sample of 303 sixth-grade students (M_age = 11.31 years, SD_age = 0.58 years) participated in a 3-h teaching unit on harvest mice that was taught in either an autonomy-supportive or controlling manner. The results revealed a significant effect of the treatment on self-determined motivation, with the effect being stronger for the boys. In the treatment with controlling teaching behavior, gender-related differences in self-determined motivation became apparent. In contrast, the gender gap was mainly smaller in the treatment with autonomy-supportive teaching behavior. Thus, the results suggest that satisfying the need for autonomy appears to be an effective means to help bridge the gender gap in biology lessons.

     

The effects of autonomy-supportive and controlling teaching behaviour in biology lessons with primary and secondary experiences on students’ intrinsic motivation and flow-experience

Self-Determination Theory and Flow Theory propose that perceived autonomy fosters the positive qualities of motivation and flow-experience. Autonomy-support can help to maintain students’ motivation in very interesting learning activities and may lead to an increase in the positive qualities of motivation in less interesting learning activities. This paper investigates whether autonomy-supportive or controlling teaching behaviour influence students’ motivation and flow-experience in biology class. In study 1, 158 students of grade six worked on the adaptations of Harvest Mice (Micromys minutus) with living animals. The 153 sixth graders of study 2 dealt with the same content but instead worked with short films on laptops. Previous studies have shown that students perceive film sequences as less interesting than working with living animals. Students’ intrinsic motivation and flow-experience were measured at the end of the first and the third lesson. In study 1, autonomy-supportive teaching behaviour led to significant differences in students’ intrinsic motivation and flow-experience when compared to controlling teaching behaviour. In study 2, motivation and flow-experience were not always in line with theory. The positive effects of autonomy-supportive and the non-beneficial effects of the controlling teaching behaviour seem to be dependent on the interestingness of the teaching material.     

Informal workplace learning: An exploration of age differences in learning competence

Informal learning is becoming a standard format in companies' training and development (T&D) activities. It requires a specific learning competence comprising cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational dimensions. In the present study, it was investigated whether learning-competence variables predict success in informal learning. Given the ageing of the workforce, we also explored age differences in learning competence in an online survey of 470 workers in three age groups (17–35, 36–50, and 51–65 years old) at a German mail-order company. Learning competence predicted success in informal learning independent of worker age, but was partially mediated by memory self-efficacy, which might induce second-order age effects under unfavourable T&D conditions.