Big Five personality traits as predictors of the academic success of university and college students in early childhood education

Academic success in early childhood teacher education is important because it provides a foundation for occupational development in terms of professional competence, the quality of educational practices, as well as career success. Consequently, identifying factors that can explain differences in academic success is an important research task. Previous research has indicated that the Big Five personality traits can predict academic success in tertiary education even when other predictors have been accounted for. However, there is a lack of research regarding students in early childhood education. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of the Big Five on the academic success of college and university students in Germany who were studying early childhood education. Data from 567 college students and 270 university students were used. Several socio-demographic variables and the school-leaving Grade Point Average (GPA) served as controls. As hypothesised, students with higher conscientiousness also had better college and university GPAs. Furthermore, higher conscientiousness was associated with higher study satisfaction but only for college students. Unexpectedly, neuroticism was not negatively related to study satisfaction. In addition, there were exploratory findings concerning the effects of agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness. The findings are discussed with respect to implications for research and practice. In particular, the consequences with regard to the preparation of students in early childhood education are discussed.     

Fostering collaborative teacher learning: A typology of school leadership

Previous research indicates that supportive school leadership is a key condition of collaborative teacher learning. The purpose of this study was to develop a typology of how school leaders foster collaborative teacher learning. We adopted an integrative perspective on leadership by examining both learning-centred leadership and distributed leadership practices that are supportive of collaborative teacher learning. Data were gathered by means of interviews with ten school leaders and a questionnaire that was completed by 39 teachers from six secondary schools in the Netherlands. The aim of the interviews was to identify to what extent school leaders applied learning-centred leadership and distributed leadership practices. The questionnaire measured teachers' perceptions of the role of school leaders in teacher learning. As an outcome of this study, we constructed a typology that provides insights into how school leaders foster collaborative teacher learning. Four types of school leaders were distinguished: (a) integrators of teacher learning, (b) facilitators of teacher learning, (c) managers of teacher learning, and (d) managers of daily school practice. Our findings suggest that integration of learning-centred leadership and distributed leadership practices can help school leaders to support collaborative teacher learning.     

Mathematikleistung und mathematischer Unterricht in Deutschland und Japan

Die TIMS-Studie war durch ihre Modellierung darauf angelegt, nicht nur ein „Ranking“ der teilnehmenden L?nder zu liefern, sondern auch Erkl?rungsans?tze für unterschiedliche Schulleistungen innerhalb und zwischen verschiedenen Kulturen. Die analytische Aussagekraft der TIMS-Studie ist in Deutschland u.a. besonders stark, weil sich Deutschland — neben Japan und den USA — an der erg?nzenden TIMS-VIDEO-Studie beteiligte. In zuf?llig aus der TIMSS-Stichprobe ausgew?hlten Schulen wurde jeweils eine Mathematikstunde im achten Jahrgang auf Video aufgezeichnet. In einem Teil der deutschen Stichprobe wurden darüber hinaus Zweit-und Drittstunden videographiert. Die videographierten Unterrichtstunden wurden digitalisiert, transkribiert und in einem iterativen Prozess zwischen Induktion und Deduktion je nach Fragestellung kategorisiert und unter Verwendung einer Software zur Analyse von Videomaterialien vercodet. Durch die Verknüpfung unterschiedlicher Datens?tze und insbesondere durch die Einbeziehung der Videos, die über Transkription, Codierung und Rating vielf?ltige interpretative, qualitative wie quantitative Auswertungen zulassen, bietet die TIMS-Studie ungew?hnliche M?glichkeiten für methodenübergreifende Analysen und somit für Triangulation. Die Nutzung quantitativer und qualitativer Auswertungsverfahren für Zusammenhangs-und Kausalanalysen, ist insbesondere durch Verknüpfung von Daten aus standardisierten Tests und Frageb?gen einerseits und qualitativen Kategorisierungen von Ereignissen in den videographierten Unterrichtssequenzen andererseits m?glich. In diesem Beitrag wird dieser Ansatz anhand der Frage. ob der Mathematikunterricht in verschiedenen Kulturen unterschiedliche inhaltliche und kognitive Schwerpunkte ausweist, im Detail verfolgt. Mit der von uns vorgenommenen Methodenkombination k?nnen verschiedene Arten der Triangulation skizziert werden. Neben den additiven Komponenten der Triangulation — die Untersuchung eines bzw. verschiedener Merkmale aus unterschiedlicher Perspektive unter Verwendung qualitativer und quantitativer Methoden — wird hier besonders die Prüfung von Erkl?rungsans?tzen durch die Kombination unterschiedlicher qualitativer und quantitativer Analysen dargestellt. Dabei steht nicht die Best?tigung der Ergebnisse des einen Verfahrens durch die Analysen des anderen Vorgehens im Vordergrund, sondern die wechselseitige Absicherung von Interpretationen durch den Einsatz verschiedener Forschungsdesigns unter Verwendung qualitativer und quantitativer Methoden.     

The Challenges and Tensions in Reconstructing Teacher - Parent Relations in the Context of School Reform: A case study

This paper reports on a comparison of two research approaches of the study of the reflective practice in two different modes of tele‐guidance of the school practicum. The results of two studies were contrasted encouraging the dialogue between researchers coming from different research paradigms. Although the researchers in the two studies shared some perspectives on educational practices and student teachers’ reflection, the studies resulted in two different reports on student teachers’ reflection. Ontological, epistemological and methodological beliefs in both studies are related to a rationalistic and a naturalistic paradigm informing the two research sites. Researchers’ voices in both studies have been interacting, changing and developing but the differences in beliefs between the two sites seem to have contributed to the different analyses and results.     

Designing student peer assessment in higher education: analysis of written and oral peer feedback

The nature of written and oral peer feedback will be described as it occurred in seven writing courses, each with a different design of peer assessment. In all courses, peer feedback was focused on evaluation, which is one of the four feedback functions. Feedback on structure was hardly provided. Relating feedback to design features, we suggest that feedback is adequate when (1) peer assessment has a summative (on the basis of a writing product) as well as a formative character (during the writing process); (2) the assessment is performed in small feedback groups; (3) the written feedback is orally explained and discussed with the receiver.     

Gender-inclusive game-based learning in secondary education

Boys show a stronger preference for digital entertainment games than girls. For this reason, it may be that game-based learning is more acceptable to boys than to girls. Yet game-based learning might improve the performance of both boys and girls, depending upon the instructional design. In a quasi-experimental study with a secret-trail game, effects were examined on students' subject-matter knowledge. Analysis of covariance revealed that both boys and girls of the game intervention group showed a higher test performance, compared to students of the control group. However, different game activities mediated this effect of the secret-trail game on performance: girls seemed to profit more from searching the Internet to complete assignments and boys from competing with others. The performance of both boys and girls was negatively influenced by technical problems. The results are discussed within the framework of gender-inclusive game design.     

Diagrammatic Literacy in Secondary Science Education

Students in secondary science education seem to have difficulties with understanding diagrams. The present study focused on explanatory factors that predict students’ difficulties with process diagrams, i.e., diagrams that describe a process consisting of components that are related by arrows. From 18 compulsory national Biology exams of secondary school pre-university students, all process diagram tasks (n?=?64) were included in corpus. Features of the task, student, and diagram were related to the difficulty of that particular task, indicated by the cohort mean exam score. A hierarchical regression analysis showed main effects for (1) the cognitive task demand, (2) the familiarity of the components, and (3) the number of components in a diagram. All these main effects were in the expected direction. We also observed interactions. Within the category of tasks with a high cognitive demand, tasks about a diagram of which students have low prior content knowledge were more difficult than tasks about a diagram of which students have high prior content knowledge. Tasks with a high cognitive demand about a diagram with familiar arrows were, surprisingly, more difficult than tasks with a high cognitive demand about a diagram with unfamiliar arrows. This latter finding might be attributed to compensation for task difficulty by the large number of components in the diagrams involved. The final model explained 46 % of the variance in exam scores. These results suggest that students have difficulties (1) with tasks that require a deeper understanding when the content is new, (2) with diagrams that use unfamiliar component conventions, and (3) with diagrams that have a small number of components and are therefore probably more abstract.     

Students’ Learning Activities While Studying Biological Process Diagrams

Process diagrams describe how a system functions (e.g. photosynthesis) and are an important type of representation in Biology education. In the present study, we examined students’ learning activities while studying process diagrams, related to their resulting comprehension of these diagrams. Each student completed three learning tasks. Verbal data and eye-tracking data were collected as indications of students’ learning activities. For the verbal data, we applied a fine-grained coding scheme to optimally describe students’ learning activities. For the eye-tracking data, we used fixation time and transitions between areas of interest in the process diagrams as indices of learning activities. Various learning activities while studying process diagrams were found that distinguished between more and less successful students. Results showed that between-student variance in comprehension score was highly predicted by meaning making of the process arrows (80%) and fixation time in the main area (65%). Students employed successful learning activities consistently across learning tasks. Furthermore, compared to unsuccessful students, successful students used a more coherent approach of interrelated learning activities for comprehending process diagrams.