Welche Rolle spielt neben Merkmalen des Instruktionsdesigns die fachspezifische und aufgabenspezifische Motivation beim Lernen mit Multimedia im naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht?

The present paper reports on an empirical study which investigated learning with text and animations in the science classroom. In a 2?×?2 design the presence of multimedia learning material instruction (text only vs. text + animations) as well as the modality of the explanatory text (spoken vs. written) were tested. Prior to learning, students’ motivation to learn was assessed as a continuous factor. Recall and transfer were assessed immediately after learning. The results show better recall of information for learners with multimedia materials, providing the animations were accompanied by spoken text. However, in contrast to the positive effects of domain-specific motivation this multimedia effect was not evident for transfer. The effects of multimedia design were independent of motivation. Implications for future studies are discussed.     

Betriebliche Mitarbeitervorsorge/Abfertigung für UniversitätsmitarbeiterInnen (Teil 1)

Im Universitätspersonalrecht findet sich eine Reihe von zeitlichen und systemischen Schnittstellen hinsichtlich des Anspruchs auf Abfertigung. Als mögliche Rechtsgrundlagen für die Abfertigung kommen das AngG, das BMSVG, das VBG, das BDG, das UniAbgG und der Universitäten-Kollektivvertrag in Frage. Diese Anspruchsgrundlagen wechseln nicht nur entsprechend der Art des Arbeitsverhältnisses, sondern stehen auch in Relation zum In-Kraft-Treten des UG und des Universitäten-KV. In Summe ergibt dies eine Fülle von Problemlagen, die der Gesetzgeber keiner eindeutigen Lösung zugeführt hat.     

Betriebliche Mitarbeitervorsorge/Abfertigung für UniversitätsmitarbeiterInnen (Teil 2)

Ebenso wie die Anspruchsgrundlagen für Abfertigungen von Universit?tsmitarbeiterInnen sind die Bestimmungen zur Rückforderung in hohem Ma?e inhomogen. Auch mit In-Kraft-Treten des Universit?ten-Kollektivvertrages hat sich die Situation nur unwesentlich ge?ndert. Vor allem bei den Schnittstellen zu neuen Arbeitsverh?ltnissen mit der Universit?t kommt es zu unterschiedlicher Berücksichtigung alter Abfertigungsanwartschaften.     

Internal and external influences on vocabulary development in preschool children

Competency in society's lingua franca plays a major role in the emergence of social disparities within education. Therefore, the present longitudinal study investigates vocabulary development and its predictors in preschool years. We focus on whether internal (phonological working memory) and external variables (preschool and home learning environment) have different impacts depending on parental native language. The study considers 547 children from 97 German preschools. Children's vocabulary was assessed at the ages of 3, 4, and 5 years. Latent growth curve models show that non-native German language children are characterized by reduced vocabulary at first assessment and lower progress compared to monolingual peers. Phonological working memory has a strong impact on all children's initial vocabulary but also on vocabulary growth in those whose parents speak German as an additional language. The effects of preschool and home learning environment are comparatively smaller.     

Urban neighbourhood quality and school leaving age: Gender differences and some hypotheses

This study used longitudinal data from the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) to examine the role of neighbourhood quality, assessed when cohort members were aged five, in boys’ and girls’ school leaving age. It was expected that, since context is in general more strongly predictive of boys’ rather than girls’ behaviour, neighbourhood quality would be more strongly related to men’s than women’s school leaving age. Results showed that, as expected, even after controlling for cognitive ability, parental socio‐economic disadvantage and social class, family structure, and maternal education, age and depressed mood, neighbourhood quality was more strongly related to men’s than women’s school leaving age. To rule out the possibility that neighbourhood quality is simply picking up individual level social class the study also explored the interaction of neighbourhood quality with parental social class. It was found that, compared to cohort members of high social class groups, cohort members of lower social class groups were less likely to stay in education after the minimum school leaving age in both neighbourhood groups, but being in the lower social class groups was more of a disadvantage for children living in well‐to‐do rather than average or poor neighbourhoods at age five.     

Online emotional inferences in written and auditory texts: a study with children and adults

Emotional inferences are conclusions that a reader draws about the emotional state of a story’s protagonist. In this study, we examined whether children and adults draw emotional inferences while reading short stories or listening to an aural presentation of short stories. We used an online method that assesses inferences during reading with a reaction time paradigm. Children aged 8 and 10 years and adults took part. We varied whether the short stories emphasized a certain goal of the protagonist in order to proof our assumption that protagonist-goals in stories help readers to build emotional inferences. Additionally, we assessed the updating capacity of our participants’ working memories assuming a positive influence. Results reveal that participants of all age groups drew emotional inferences. Type of text presentation, goal-emphasis, and updating capacity influence whether emotional inferences are built and how precise these inferences are. The way in which these variables influenced emotional inferences was moderated by the age of the participants.     

Cleavage structures and school politics: a Rokkanian comparative-historical analysis

ABSTRACT

This paper explores comparatively and historically why Nordic and Continental welfare and education regimes differ in the degree of comprehensiveness of their primary and lower secondary school systems. It analyses how school reforms, reform attempts and coalitions in the post-war decades were shaped by different cleavage structures in Norway and the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. While the class cleavage was most dominant in school politics in both cases, rural–urban, centre–periphery, state–church and communist–socialist cleavages shaped party systems, political alliances and outcomes decisively. In particular, the rural population was integrated into different cross-interest coalitions: in Norway, its political representatives consented to social democratic comprehensive school reforms, while in Germany, they opposed such reforms. This was related to cross-cutting conflicts concerning centralisation and language in the Norwegian case and regarding religion, centralisation and (anti-)communism in the German case.     

Is drawing after learning effective for metacognitive monitoring only when supported by spatial scaffolds?

Instructional Science - In this study, we investigated whether drawing after learning supports metacognitive monitoring especially when students are supported in their drawing efforts. Therefore,...