The interest of Bavarian primary school pupils in geographical topics and methods – selected results of an empirical survey

Interest is a central learning prerequisite for teaching. The article deals with a survey among 1600 primary school pupils in forms 2, 3 and 4 (ages 7–10) in the German federal state of Bavaria who were interviewed on their interest in geographical topics and working methods. They were given a questionnaire including 40 items to indicate their individual interest on a five-point Likert scale. The results show that the subscale ‘natural disaster' generates the highest interest, followed by ‘phenomena of geoscience' and ‘people and peoples'. The interest in all three subscales decreases with increasing age. Furthermore, several gender-specific differences occur. Among the working methods, experimenting, films and computers hold the first three places whilst again showing significant differences concerning age group as well as gender.     

Effektivität schulischer Sprachförderung bei Erstklässlern mit Sprachentwicklungsstörungen

The present study examines the language development of N = 48 children with specific language impairments. All pupils were primary students in their first year. They all were tested with the standardized test (SET 5-10). N = 24 children received special tuition. All other children participated in the common tutoring structures of teaching in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The results of this study show a moderate but significant progress in language development for both groups.     

Elite und Exzellenz aus der Perspektive von Jugendlichen und ihren Peers an exklusiven Schulen

Against the backdrop of the recent political discourse on elite and excellence in the German education system, this paper examines how such constructions manifest themselves in programmatic concepts of schools and in the orientations of their pupils and their peers. They are reconstructed on the basis of a qualitative research project on educational careers of young people. This paper focuses on pupils and their peers at an elite school of sports and an international school. Firstly, the state of research on those types of school as well as on educational careers of their pupils will be presented. Secondly, the theoretical reference points and the methodological design of the study will be introduced. At the core of the paper is the analysis of the education related orientations of selected cases of young people and their peers: How do they position themselves towards elite and excellence in their individual and collective orientations and how is this relevant for processes of distinction and coherence building in the groups? In the resuming part of the paper, the results will be summarised and related to the state of research and the scientific discourse on elite and excellence.     

Impulsive control on the asymptotic stability of the solutions of a Solow model with endogenous labor growth

In this paper, the asymptotic behavior of a generalized Solow model with endogenous labor growth and impulsive perturbations at fixed moments of time is studied. By using the Lyapunov–Razumikhin method sufficient conditions for week uniform asymptotic stability of the solutions are obtained. We also show that the role of impulses in control the behavior of solutions of impulsive models is very important.     

SVC bitstream adaptation in MPEG-21 multimedia framework

INTRODUCTION Scalable video coding (SVC) (Schwarz et al., 2004) is the most promising video format for appli- cations of collaborative communication. First, SVC format, which is extended from the latest advanced video coding (AVC), is appropriate for creating a wide variety of bitrates with high compression effi- ciency. Second, an original SVC bitstream can be easily truncated in different ways to meet various characteristics and variations of devices and connec- tions. The scalabil…     

Ohne Schulabschluss in die Berufsausbildung: Ergebnisse einer Längsschnittuntersuchung

Young people who leave school without obtaining a secondary school certificate bear an increased risk of not completing vocational training and being excluded from stable employment in their working life. However, some of these young people do achieve access to vocational training and employment. Based on a longitudinal study of school-to-work transitions of a representative sample of graduates from Praxisklassen in Bavaria (a course especially designed for potential school drop outs at the lower secondary school – Hauptschule), patterns of transition that lead into vocational training and employment are compared with patterns that end up in exclusion from education, training and employment. Determinants of successful transitions, which can be targeted by pedagogical measures, are inter alia: participation in internships in enterprises during the last year of schooling, help and support received from parents and professional career guidance. However, besides these influential factors, regional labor market conditions are important for a successful school-to-work transition. This close link to the labor market ultimately limits the effects of educational interventions.     

Multimethod assessment of self-regulated learning in college students: different methods for different components?

Instructional Science - Although self-regulated learning (SRL) is seen as highly relevant for successful college learning, college students oftentimes show a lack in SRL abilities. Therefore, it...