Fritz Oser/Sigrid Blömeke
Teachers’ Convictions. An introduction
Sigrid Blömeke/Ute Suhl/Martina Döhrmann
Joining Together What Belongs Together. An international comparison of competence profiles at the end of teacher training
The authors examine whether, in the 14 countries which took part in the Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M), carried out by the IEA, future teachers can be identified who exhibit comparable patterns of professional knowledge and professional beliefs. The identification of such competence profiles is carried out on the basis of the item-response-theory, so that group membership is modeled in a person-oriented and non-deterministic way. In the majority of the countries investigated, two profiles could be identified at the end of teacher training: teachers with a cognitively ambitious and dynamic-constructivist accented competence profile and less efficient teachers with more static and transmission-oriented beliefs. Explanatory attributes of profile membership are gender, subject-related and, above all, subject-specific didactic learning opportunities as well as coherence in teacher training. The results point to potential reforms of teacher training.
Sibylle Steinmann/Fritz Oser
Are the Beliefs of Future Primary Teachers Determined by Teachers in Teacher Training? Shared beliefs as a quantity in teacher training
Today, it is undisputed that the beliefs of teachers have a strong impact on their professional behavior. We therefore assume that the beliefs of teachers in teacher training also have a strong influence on the students they educate. Due to the fact that there are several actors participating in teacher training (specialized trainers/didactics specialists, educational scientists and teachers in practical training) it is justified to ask whether these actors have in common something like shared beliefs and whether these – if they are in fact shared – are of stronger impact. On the basis of both the TEDS-M data and an additional survey, the authors analyze, in a first step, in how far teachers in teacher training working in Swiss primary-teacher education in the German-speaking cantons do have shared beliefs with regard to teaching and learning, to the nature of mathematics, and to the acquisition of mathematical competences. The results show that a) there are few shared beliefs among those responsible for teacher training and b) students in teacher training adapt their beliefs rather to lecturers in mathematics/mathematical didactics than to lecturers in educational science or to teachers in the practical field.
Horst Biedermann/Christian Brühwiler/Samuel Krattenmacher
Learning Opportunities in Teacher Training and Convictions Regarding Teaching and Learning. Relationship analyses among future teachers
The contribution focuses on the question of in how far learning opportunities in primary teacher training are linked to construction- and transmission-oriented beliefs about the acquisition of mathematical knowledge. The majority of publications on this subject state that students – on enrolling in teacher training – already hold firm beliefs regarding their future profession, convictions that are hard to change. The present analysis shows that there is a connection between learning opportunities in the field of mathematics didactics and students’ beliefs, but that – on the other hand – there is no interrelation between learning opportunities in the field of mathematics didactics and learning opportunities in the field of school mathematics and (school) pedagogy. Although the data does not allow for reliable causal statements, the results nonetheless support the assumption that learning opportunities may also influence profession-relevant beliefs among students.
Johannes König/Gabriele Kaiser/Anja Felbrich
Is Pedagogical Knowledge Reflected in the Competence-Related Self-Assessments of Future Teachers? On the inter-relation between knowledge and beliefs after completing teacher training
The authors examine the interrelation between future teachers’ self-assessments of their competence regarding central demands of teaching after completing their training and their pedagogical knowledge regarding the core task of teaching. In view of the high significance attributed to self-assessments in existing studies on the efficiency of teacher training, high correlations between self-assessment and knowledge are expected. The investigation is based on data from the comparative study TEDS-M relating to the participating countries of Germany and the United States. Correlative findings suggest that future teachers with a better test performance were more thoroughly convinced of being well-prepared for teaching. Contrary to the expectations, however, the correlations between knowledge and self-assessment are rather low and only statistically relevant in the case of future German primary teachers and of future secondary teachers in the US. In a final part, implications for the evaluation of the methodological approach to self-assessment procedures and for the professionalization of future teachers are discussed.
Eckhard Klieme
International Large-Scale Assessment in Teacher Training: Observations on a recent paradigm of comparative educational research
The IEA’s TEDS-M study constitutes a new type of international comparative large-scale assessment. Its aims, theoretical foundations, and methods are traced back to a combination of diverse articles on international research on school achievement and on teacher training. Insights and challenges related to multi-level analyses of job-related beliefs among future maths teachers are discussed.
Anne-Katrin Jordan/Jens Knigge/Andreas C. Lehmann/Anne Niessen/Andreas Lehmann-Wermser
Development and Validation of a Competence Model in Music Instruction – Perception and contextualization of music
So far, no empirically validated competence model has been developed for the school subject music. In their study, the authors report on the first attempt to operationalize a theoretical competence model for music instruction and to validate it on the basis of selected tasks. For the sake of research economy, the investigation was restricted to the curricular field “Perception and Contextualization of Music“. In total, 1449 sixth-grade students took part in the main study; the final test tasks were administered via in a computer-based test. In the evaluation, the validity of the Rasch model was examined, dimensionality was verified on the basis of comparisons between one- and multi-dimensional models, and levels of competence were defined. Finally, the validated competence model is described and discussed.
Jürgen Budde
Problem-Oriented Perspectives on Heterogeneity as an Ambivalent Topic in Research on Teaching and Schools
The author analyzes the use of the term heterogeneity in the context of schooling with the aim of making it fertile for educational-scientific research into teaching and schools. It is shown that the issue of heterogeneity is linked with homogeneity, with different levels within the fields of schooling, and with discursive applications through lines of tension. The term is used above all in the context of socio-cultural categories and in the context of performance heterogeneity. The author criticizes a curtailed and ontologizing understanding of heterogeneity and, conversely, points to the construction of (conceptionsof) heterogeneity within the field of schools itself. He pleads for a cultural-theoretical perspective which conceives of heterogeneity not as a “fact“, but rather as a process of applying methods of differentiation which can be reconstructed empirically.
Elmar Drieschner/Detlef Gaus
Kindergarten and Primary School between Differentiation and Integration.
Model assumptions regarding structures and processes of system development
The main characteristics of the development of the educational system are processes of differentiation and integration. An ever greater number of pedagogical fields of work and institutions become part of the educational system. Based on the example of primary school and kindergarten, the authors argue that both organizations are in the middle of different phases of this process of modernization which proceeds at a different pace, respectively. The system- and modernization-theoretical perspective adopted in this contribution paints a more precise picture of the field of tension between historically grown differences and present-day demands regarding the connectivity of these two organizations. The study’s aim is to develop a comprehensive theory of structural integration processes.
Dissertations and habilitation treatises in educational sciences in 2011