Observing justice in the primary school classroom

Justice-related situations are a part of students? everyday life. In order to test the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of (in)justice in school, valid measures of justice are needed. To our knowledge, this is the first study to develop an observer low inference rating instrument that can be applied to measure justice in the primary classroom. In two pre-studies, justice-relevant situations in the classroom were extracted and observable indicators for these situations were developed. In the main study, this instrument was used to observe 208 primary school students with regard to their experiences of justice or injustice. In addition to this, other measures of justice were developed to examine the convergence between observer low inference ratings of classroom justice and high inference rating instruments for teachers, students, and external observers.Factor analyses and correlations between the different indices of the observer low inference rating and the high inference rating items suggested that incidents of justice and injustice in the classroom do not tend to co-occur frequently. Teachers do not appear to have a general tendency to treat a child more or less justly across a large number of situations.The findings suggest that a comprehensive assessment of classroom justice requires a multi-method approach where the justice ratings of students, teachers and external observers are all taken into consideration.     

THE DETERMINATION AND EVALUATION OF RESULTS IN THE STUDY PROCESS

Student assessment and grading schemes in higher education institutions should be adapted and applied in such a way that they stimulate students to achieve to the utmost of their abilities. It is not sufficient to simply give a grade to a student for a task accomplished or even to give him an average grade for a series of tasks accomplished during a given time period, a semester, for instance. Rather it is necessary to create an action framework of a kind which links the performance dynamic of both students and teachers so as to ensure the accurate determination, evaluation, and analysis of the joint student‐teacher performance behaviour in such a way that the individual procedures subject to evaluation can be grouped into joint procedures which stimulate self‐determination self‐evaluation, and self‐analysis on the part of students, teachers, and eventually, the employers of graduates. The authors have designed two models which illustrate optimum evaluation procedures of the kind which they favour.     

Probleme von Lehrerinnen und Lehrern mit der Beurteilung von Schülerleistungen

Zusammenfassung Die Erzeugung, Begründung und Durchsetzung von Leistungsbeurteilungen in der Schule stellt für Lehrkr?fte in verschiedenen Hinsichten ein Problem dar. Einerseits sind die Grenzen des Konzepts der Schulleistung strittig, andererseits gilt es, ungeachtet der defizit?ren wissenschaftlichen Rationalisierung der Praxis der schulischen Leistungsbeurteilung vertretbare Selektionsentscheidungen zu produzieren sowie zwischen den vielfach als widersprüchlich empfundenen Zielsetzungen der F?rderung und der Selektion abzuw?gen. Der Beitrag geht der Frage nach, wie Lehrkr?fte an ?ffentlichen Schulen mit diesen und ?hnlichen Problemen umgehen. Er berichtet über Teilergebnisse eines von der DFG gef?rderten Forschungsprojekts über „Selektionsentscheidungen als Problembereich professionellen Lehrerhandelns“ (Terhart/Langkau/Lüders 1999). Insbesondere werden Befunde einer Dilemma-Studie vorgestellt, in deren Rahmen Lehrkr?fte mit problematischen Zensierungs-und Selektionsentscheidungen konfrontiert und um eine Stellungnahme gebeten worden sind. Dabei stehen keineswegs erneut die vielfach konstatierten Schw?chen des Lehrerurteils im Zentrum der Betrachtung. Ziel des Beitrages ist es vielmehr, die erhobenen Stellungnahmen der Lehrkr?fte als Ausdruck bestimmter Rahmenbedingungen schulischen Bewertungshandelns zu interpretieren, damit einen vertieften Einblick in die Praxis der Leistungsbeurteilung als Praxis einer in Organisationen t?tigen Profession zu geben und Hypothesen für die weitere Forschung zu generieren.

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Summary Problems Concerning the Judgement of Pupils’ Performance The generation, justification and assertion of judgements concerning pupils’ performance present teachers with a variety of problems. On the one hand, the boundaries of the concept of pupil performance are controversial whilst, on the other, in spite of the deficiency of scientific rationalization of this practice, adequate selective decisions must be generated and the balance between support and selection must be weighed up. This paper considers the way teachers in public schools cope with these and other similar problems. It reports on some of the results from a DFG-supported research project entitled “Selective decisions as a problem area in professional teaching practice” (Terhart/Langkau/Lüders 1999). In particular, responses from a dilemma study are presented, in which teachers were confronted with problematic selective decisions and asked for their professional opinion. The focal point of this study is not the regularly proclaimed weakness of teachers’ judgements. The objective of this paper is instead to interpret the professional judgement of teachers as an expression of particular conditions of school assessment practice; through this, to offer a deeper insight into the practice of performance assessment conceived of as the practice of a profession which works in organizations, and to generate hypotheses for further research in this field of study.

     

Revitalizing Ernst Mach’s Popular Scientific Lectures

Compared to Ernst Mach’s influence on the conceptual development of physics, his efforts to popularize science and his reflections on science literacy are known to a much lesser degree. The approach and the impact of Mach’s popular scientific lectures are discussed in view of today’s problems of understanding science. The key issues of Mach’s popular scientific lectures, reconsidered in the light of contemporary science, still hold a high potential in fascinating a general audience. Moreover, Mach’s grand theme, the relation of the physical to the psychical, is suited to contribute to a dialogue between different knowledge cultures, e.g. science and humanities.     

Profil und Erträge von evangelischen und katholischen Schulen

In diesem Beitrag wird das konzeptionelle Profil von evangelischen und katholischen Schulen beschrieben und es werden diese Schulen mit solchen in ?ffentlicher Tr?gerschaft hinsichtlich ausgew?hlter Bildungs- und Sozialisationsertr?ge verglichen. Anhand der in PISA 2000-E aufgenommenen Schulen in kirchlichter Tr?gerschaft untersuchen wir, inwieweit sich das konzeptionelle Profil dieser Schulen in schulischen Effekten zeigt. Dabei werden Rekrutierungseffekte erfasst, was einen Blick auf die Effizienz der Schulen erm?glicht. Anders als bisher vor dem Hintergrund der Schuleffizienzforschung angenommen, gelingt es diesen Schulen, ihren konzeptionellen Anspruch zumindest in Teilbereichen (Kompetenzvermittlung, Schulklima) umzusetzen. Keine Effekte zeigen sich hinsichtlich der Lernmotivation und des sozialen Lernens.     

Ethics, deafness, and new medical technologies

In the last 50 years, several new technologies have become enormously important within the Deaf community and have helped significantly to improve deaf people's lives in a hearing world. Current public attention and admiration, however, seems unduly focused on medical technologies that promise to solve "the problem" of being deaf. One reason for this interest, we argue, is the public's preoccupation with deafness as a disability and promises that technological breakthroughs such as the cochlear implant will "cure" deafness. Pressure on parents to make quick and early decisions and lack of adequate information about alternatives often leave them unprepared for the consequences of these decisions. To allow deaf individuals and their families to make better informed decisions about their lives and their futures, we argue finally that professionals who interact with these families adopt inclusive and individualizing ethics.