Wirkungen zentraler Abschlussprüfungen im Mehrebenensystem Schule. Eine Zwischenbilanz internationaler und nationaler Befunde und Forschungsdesiderata

Statewide exit exams have become a central governance instrument at the end of secondary schooling in Germany. In the article, the current state of research in Germany is systematized from an international comparative perspective in relation to intended and unintended effects. Findings regarding state exam policies and effects at the school and instructional level are presented as an interim report on a comparably young field of research. The findings show differences by states, subjects and courses which suggest that there is no general effect of statewide exams. In this context, future research should account for the heterogeneity of exam procedures to a greater degree.     

More is not always better: Effects of collaboration breadth and depth on radical and incremental innovation performance at the project level

This study investigates the effect of project-level collaboration breadth (i.e., the number of collaboration partner types) and collaboration depth (i.e., the intensity of the interactions with these partners) on the incremental and radical innovation performance of innovation projects. The econometric analyses, based on a Community Innovation Study sample of 218 innovation projects conducted in German manufacturing companies, reveal inverted U-shaped relationships between collaboration breadth and radical innovation performance and between collaboration depth and incremental innovation performance. These curvilinear effects speak to the high sensitivity of innovation projects to the extent of collaborative activity, which implies that practitioners should exert caution in managing collaborative innovation projects. This study contributes to the understanding of project-level open innovation and to the overall understanding of the performance effects of innovation collaboration, which, following recent assertions in the literature, could be flawed by analyses conducted at the organizational level.     

Antecedents of cooperative commercialisation strategies of nanotechnology firms

We examine the antecedents for cooperative behaviour in the commercialisation of nanotechnology for both small/medium and large firms. For small and medium firms (SMEs) our results confirm the influence of complementary assets and transaction costs, but surprisingly do not support any influence of intellectual property rights protection on cooperative behaviour. For large firms the results show a negative relationship for both intellectual property rights protection and ownership of complementary resources with cooperative behaviour. Overall, collaboration-based commercialisation in nanotechnology for both small/medium as well as large firms seems to follow antecedents previously identified in earlier studies. In addition, we find that in the current stage of the nanotechnology commercialisation environment, intellectual property rights protection for small/medium-sized enterprises is associated with the acquisition of other firms.     

Achievement goals and school achievement: The transition to different school tracks in secondary school

During the transition from elementary school to secondary school, in Germany, students are assigned to different school tracks, academic or non-academic, that differ markedly in compositional and institutional characteristics, e.g., the level of cognitive activation and performance standards are higher in academic tracks than in non-academic tracks. Currently, there is a lack of research examining the changes in achievement goals (mastery-approach, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals) and in the association between achievement goals and school achievement during the transition to these different school tracks. There were 1646 students who participated in a large-scale, three-wave longitudinal study from Grade 4 to Grade 6. While results revealed only slight differences between the two school tracks, the three types of achievement goals declined over time. In elementary school mastery-approach goals were positively and performance-approach goals negatively associated with school grades. After the transition to secondary school mastery-approach goals predicted school grades positively, whereas performance-approach goals negatively influenced achievement (academic track). Overall, the results indicate that between-school-tracking plays a minor role for the development of achievement goals and the relation between goals and achievement.     

Wie viele Schuljahre bis zum Abitur?

Reducing the number of school years until graduation from academic-track secondary schooling (“G8”) has been one of the most important structural changes to schooling in the past few years. The reduction is one element of more compressed and accelerated processes in institutional education implemented over the last decade. The extent to which the changes in the systemic context of schooling affect organizational and instructional processes and results, or the school actors concerned (teachers, pupils and their families), has only been insufficiently investigated so far. This contribution provides an overview of this barely investigated topic. Following a review of the historical developments, the normative debates regarding reduced school time will be presented and then compared with the current state of research. The paper closes with an analysis of different models for organizing the reduction of school years and an outlook on current developments.     

The technology mismatch paradox of mobile e-mail access: When changed norms of responsiveness meet technology undersupply

Connectivity, enabled by mobile devices and mobile e-mail access in particular, plays an increasingly important role at work. While there is a growing body of literature on employees who experience great levels of connectivity, little is known about those who have low levels of connectivity because they have not been provided with mobile devices for work. When highly connected individuals collaborate with less technologically equipped employees, the latter have to negotiate their work practices in a demanding space of expectations and technological constraints and affordances. This article examines these dynamics via mixed-methods case studies of two public-sector organizations in Germany.     

Challenges and problems for research in the field of statewide exams. A stock taking of differing procedures and standardization levels

Statewide exit examinations play an important role in discussions on school effectiveness. Referring to educational governance concepts, this paper presumes a relation between varying organizational structures of statewide examinations across states, and heterogeneous effects on school actors. It is assumed that their ability to affect work in schools depends on how standardized their procedures are. Therefore, their structural elements must be juxtaposed, and their standardization level must be identified. This paper describes the results of a comparative review of statewide exit examinations using the example of 16 OECD-states alongside the categories Historical Context, Organizational Framework, Marking, and Handling of Results, and discusses the examinations regarding their overall standardization. The study is a basis for further research into how differently structured exit examinations affect school work.     

Why flipping the classroom is not enough: Digital curriculum making after the pandemic

PROSPECTS - To slow down the proliferation of Covid-19, governments virtually shut down public life, temporarily closed schools, and forced teaching to be done exclusively on a remote basis. These...