Martin Rothland/Ewald Terhart
Diagnosing the Aptitude of Future Teachers
An introduction
Katja Päßler/Benedikt Hell/Heinz Schuler
Fundamentals of the Diagnostics of Vocational Aptitude and its Application to the Teaching Profession
The diagnostics of vocational aptitude constitute a thriving field of research and practice with roots in both psychological diagnostics and the psychology of work, organization and personnel. The article gives a survey on the major procedures for the diagnosis of aptitude, examines their diagnostic potential and significance as well as their limits and potentials with regard to their application to the teaching profession. Requirement analysis as an essential component of every aptitude diagnosis constitutes is focused upon, in particular, because its methodological variants, the diversity of which is in part due to different bjectives (condition-related vs. person-related), provide complementary perspectives for the analysis of the teaching profession. In addition to a general description of the research findings, the authors present a specific implementation example in the form of a multi-stage selection procedure for students in teacher training.
Martin Rothland/Sandra Tirre
Self-Exploration for Future Teachers: What do selected procedures of aptitude diagnostics record?
The authors start from the question of what is actually recorded by procedures of self-exploration through which individuals wanting to make a career as a teacher are meant to reflect and evaluate their aptitude for the teaching profession. Based on the description of scales and items from two selected methods of self-exploration – the FIT-Inventory (Fit for the Teaching Profession) and the FIBEL (feedback-inventory for a profession-related initial orientation for the teaching profession), it is assumed that both procedures show multiple links to general personality variables and do thus not primarily record characteristics specific to the teaching profession. This hypothesis is empirically examined through a correlation analysis in which the correlations between the methods of self-exploration and the personality questionnaire NEO-FFI are calculated on the basis of data provided by a sample of n = 391 students in teacher training. The results suggest that FIT, FIBEL and NEO-FFI preponderantly record characteristics related in content. The significance of stable personality traits in the context of aptitude diagnostics for future teachers is iscussed.
Andrea E. Abele
Predictors of the Professional Success of Teachers
Findings of the long-term study MATHE
The present article reports on a long-term study in the course of which individuals who had studied mathematics finishing with either a state exam or a diploma were interviewed at the end of their studies and again ten years after they had started working in their professional field. The aim was to examine how far socio-cognitive variables (professional self-efficiency, professional aims) and self-concept (operative and communal component) allow predicting professional success ten years later. In this, objective professional success is measured by the amount and scope of work, whereas subjective professional
success is measured on the basis of a subjective assessment of achievement as well as the degree of satisfaction with the job and the feeling of stress (both in general and specifically in relation with the job of a teacher). Findings show that, at the end of their studies, those individuals finishing with a state exam differed from those taking a diploma with regard to both their aims and their self-concepts. Ten years after having finished their studies, the percentage of working mothers among the maths teachers is smaller than that of employed women with children among mathematicians with a diploma. Teachers feel in general more stressed and are less satisfied with their job than the group of individuals with a diploma. Self-efficiency and an operative self-concept have an impact on both the employment and the satisfaction with one’s work as well as on the achievement assessment and (in reverse) on the feeling of stress. Compatibility-related aims have a negative influence on the satisfaction with the job. Consequences for possible measures to be taken in teacher training are discussed.
Christine Bieri Buschor/Patricia Schuler Braunschweig
Check-Point Assessment Centre for Future Students of the Teaching Profession
Empirical findings on the prognostic validity and the correlation of self-assessment and external assessment of aptitude-relevant characteristics
In order to study at the Pädagogische Hochschule Zürich (Zurich University of Teacher Education), students without a high-school leaving certificate (Matura) have to take part in an Assessment Center (AC), in addition to subject-specific exams, to have their interdisciplinary and cross-curricular competencies tested. The present contribution examines interrelations between self-assessment and external assessment as well as predictive validity. The external assessment given in the AC proved to be a significant predictor with regard to a successful passing of the intermediate exam. In contrast, educational background, achievement in a general intelligence test, and self-assessment by the students were not statistically significant. External assessment in the AC, on the other hand, is clearly related to the assessment given by the mentors after the first year of studies with regard to the students´ aptitude for the teaching profession. The findings lead to the conclusion that the Assessment Center constitutes a rather solid method for the assessment of competencies among future student teachers.
Uta Klusmann/Michaela Köller/Mareike Kunter
Annotations on the Validity of Aptitude-Diagnostic Procedures among Future Teachers
The identification of competencies and skills which constitute a prerequisite for successful teaching is of both scientific and educational-political interest. At present, different test methods are available, which were conceived to determine the students´ aptitude for studying and practicing the teaching profession before entering teacher training. Against the background of general diagnostics applied to determine aptitude and of research on the professional competence among teachers, the authors aim at deducing the central challenges of aptitude-diagnostic procedures for future teachers with regard to their diagnostic aim and to the choice of criteria and of predictors. On this basis, they then discuss in how far the procedures used today succeed in dealing with these challenges, how they (can) contribute to the prediction of scholastic and professional success among teachers, and what defines the limits of their significance and validity.
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Dietmar Langer
The Renaissance of the “Ego” in Educational Theory. Personalism in education as moderate naturalism
Somebody is a person if he or she can refer to him/herself as “I”, if he or she can pose sensible questions, educate him/herself adequately, and make reasonable decisions. The author pleads for an approach which relates education to the person alone and which only writes the “I” in capital letters at the beginning of a sentence. Personalism based on a moderate naturalism assumes that it is neither my mind which controls my brain nor my brain which controls my behavior, but, rather, that I as a person can control myself because I am master of myself if I possess a free and sensible will. Both can be found at that place where they actually occur, namely as social constructs in the play on words related to the attribution of personal responsibility and authorship. Through pedagogical communication, the person to be educated can and is meant to learn to conceive of and experience him/herself as responsible author of his or her actions.
Linda Paulina Fröhlich/Franz Petermann/Dorothee Metz
Advancement of Phonological Awareness at the Transition from Kindergarten to Primary School through the “Lobo-Programs”
During the first years of schooling, a child acquires competencies which are of significance to his or her entire future life. Among these are, above all, the skills of reading and writing. The “Lobo from Globo”-programs for the advancement of phonological awareness described in the article allow to help children on the threshold from kindergarten to primary school achieve a rather problem-free entry into the acquisition of the written language. It is examined whether and in how far children who received this support profited from participating in either one of the two or in both programs. Findings of the analysis of a sample of N = 501 children are reported. A group of kindergarten children consisting of an intervention-, a control-, and a combined group is compared with a group of school children also consisting of an intervention-, a control-, and a combined group (children who took part in both the Lobo kindergarten-program and the Lobo school-program). The results show that both kindergarten children and school children profited from a training of the phonological awareness. Children who took part in both kindergarten and school training (combined group) exhibited the strongest performance increase in phonological awareness.
Theodor Schulze
Theses on German Progressive Education
Jürgen Oelkers
A Comment in Response to Theodor Schulze
The author discusses the accusation that German progressive education (Reformpädagogik) would be treated unfairly by presuming abuse. In this, a crucial question is what is meant by “progressive education”. The author evolves the thesis that pivotal reforms emerged from the center of the system and that rural boarding schools never constituted a “laboratory” for the state school. Furthermore, it is argued that one cannot, on the one hand, mourn the victims and, on the other, continue with progressive education as before.
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