Teaching children science through storytelling combined with hands-on activities – a successful instructional strategy?

Earlier studies have discussed the usefulness of storytelling and hands-on activities when teaching young children science. However, few studies have investigated the use of the two methods in combination. This study reports on five pre-school teachers’ experience of combining storytelling and hands-on activities in teaching science and their perceived effects of the combination. Interviews with the teachers and a supplementary observation served as the data material, which was transformed into narratives and member-checked by the participating teachers. Some found the combination of methods important while others argued that hands-on activities were effective without the use of stories. The teachers’ enjoyment in adopting the combinatory method and their appreciation of the stories also made a difference.     

The significance of dealing with mistakes for student achievement and motivation: results of doubly latent multilevel analyses

European Journal of Psychology of Education - From a constructivist perspective on learning, mistakes are seen as natural elements of learning processes. A supportive and constructive way of...     

Introduction to the special Issue “applied metacognition: real-world applications beyond learning”

Metacognition and Learning - Research in the area of metacognition is on the rise. Translating and applying the fruits of basic scientific results to various end-users and real-world scenarios is...     

Sportunterricht

Physical education is linked with hopes of health improvement. Especially for children and adolescents who are inactive in leisure, physical education (P.E.) is of great importance. The purpose of this paper is to answer the question whether the health status of inactive children and adolescents differs depending on the number of P.E. lessons attended. This question was analyzed with a sub-sample of the KiGGS (children and adolescents health survey) and MoMo (motoric module) studies of inactive subjects (n=310; age 7–17 years) who were classified into two groups depending on the number of P.E. lessons attended (up to 2 lessons/week; more than 2 lessons/week). Health status was assessed using questionnaires, motor performance tests and laboratory findings. Analyses of variance showed no significant differences between the two groups concerning health parameters.     

Inclusive vocational schools in Canada and Germany. A comparison of vocational pre-service teachers′ attitudes,self-efficacy and experiences towards inclusive education

Both Canada’s and Germany’s school systems are transitioning into inclusive education systems. This transition is also happening in vocational schools. This paper addresses the new demands that vocational teachers face, due to the introduction of inclusive education in Germany and Canada, by examining Canadian and German pre-service vocational teachers’ attitudes, self-efficacy and experiences related to inclusive education. The study identifies significantly more positive ratings in the Canadian sample across all the three scales. We conclude that the different ratings relate to different school systems, experiences with inclusion and the teacher education systems. Based on these research findings, recommendations for teacher education are discussed.     

The influence of gender composition in a field of study on students' drop‐out of higher education

Combining Tinto's classical model of student drop‐out with Kanter's assessment of minorities, this article examines the influence of gender composition in a field of study on drop‐out from higher education. Our empirical analysis is based on a sample of students who left German higher education in 2014. Our results confirm previous findings that women in gender‐atypical subjects show a higher drop‐out risk than their male fellow students. We assess several mechanisms which could contribute to explain this effect. Contrary to our expectations, social integration, in the sense of contact with lecturers, seems to be a protective factor for women and men in gender‐atypical subjects. For women in gender‐atypical fields of study, contact with peers is an additional protective factor against drop‐out. The most important mechanism to explain higher education drop‐out is women's more negative self‐assessment of their suitability for male‐dominated subjects.     

A card game for designing activities for technology-enhanced learning in higher education

Education and Information Technologies - The importance of providing mechanisms and tools that effectively support the transition from implicit to explicit representations of Learning Design has...     

Beginnings and Endings in Social Work Supervision: The Interaction Between Attachment and Developmental Processes

This article discusses the interaction of attachment processes and stages of social work student development within the field supervisory relationship and suggests ways supervisors can modify interactions with students. Attachment theory and research provide a framework for understanding innate capacities of students and the relational dynamics of supervision. Developmental stages of learning explain how students mature and the supervisory relationship changes over time. Scenarios from the beginning and ending of the field practicum are used to illustrate how to differentiate attachment traits from developmental states in assessing student affect and behavior. Recommendations are made for training and future supervision research.     

Quality assurance and its impact from higher education institutions’ perspectives: methodological approaches,experiences and expectations

This paper reports on methodological approaches, experiences and expectations referring to impact analysis of quality assurance from the perspective of three higher education institutions (students, teaching staff, quality managers) from Germany, Finland and Romania. The presentations of the three sample institutions focus on discussing the core characteristics of quality assurance procedures applied and their expected and observed impacts, and how intended and non-intended undesirable ones are measured. It turns out that all sample institutions have already some instruments and sub-procedures in place for impact analysis of quality assurance and all of them are striving for further improvement by applying internal and external quality assurance procedures and impact analyses. Finally, a closer look at the recently revised Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area shows that the European sample institutions are on their way towards coherent quality assurance policies, while there is also room left for further improvement and investigation (for example, in implementing systematic methodologies of impact evaluation and quality policies in general).     

Student Preschool Teachers’ Experiences of Science and Its Role in Preschool

This article reports on student preschool teachers’ views of science and its role in preschool. Three cohorts of students have been given a written questionnaire with open-ended questions before and after a one-semester course including science (specifically Chemistry and Physics) in a 3.5-year preschool teacher programme in Sweden. The science content in the course is integrated with other subjects and lecturers with different subject backgrounds work together in forming an integrated and meaningful context. A phenomenographic qualitative analysis of responses to the questionnaires before and after the course is presented. The analysis indicated that many students equate science with biology (nature studies), and several did not adjust this view even though chemistry and physics were explicitly taught. Surprisingly few students were negative towards science, none after the course. However, several remain hesitantly positive. Most students described ‘what’ and ‘how’ perspectives of science, but few developed a synthesised view of science activities. However, there was a shift towards a more integrated perspective after the course. Also the quality and eloquence of the students’ responses were noticeably improved in responses given after the course. Prior expectations and implications of the results for preschool teacher education are discussed.