ALICE

The Coronavirus Crisis has spurred an urgent need to support students’ learning via digital technologies. Digital technologies can also adapt to learners’ knowledge and skills and can adaptively provide them with learning materials and instruction that are tailored to their competence. However, this requires that the digital learning environment is able to model learners’ understanding and performance during the learning process and make predictions about each individual learners’ potential progress during the learning activity.
This project aims at establishing theoretical and methodological foundations for providing learners with adaptive support during mathematics and science education. To this end, the project combines four research strands, that are

1) developing digital learning materials that is based on learning-progressions in mathematics, biology, chemistry or physics.

2) Collecting authentic data from students who are engaging with this learning material in order to develop predictor models of how learners’ competence develops over time.

3) Reconstructing learners’ learning trajectories, and finally

4) investigating the effectiveness of different learning trajectories and developed instructional support that helps learners achieve their learning goals.

SchuMaS

In the federal-state initiative SchuMaS – “Schule macht stark”, researchers from 13 institutions are working with a total of 200 schools to develop measures to improve the learning conditions and performance of socially disadvantaged students. The common feature of the selected 200 schools is the socially challenging situation in which the schools find themselves and the more difficult conditions for teaching and learning that accompany this. These conditions are: Increased language support needs, high staff turnover, parent homes at risk of poverty. The current pandemic situation is also not ignored. 

The actual success of the students is the main focus of “SchuMaS”. The overall goal of the project is to improve the educational opportunities of socially disadvantaged students and thus reduce social inequalities.
Particular attention is paid to improving the basic mathematical skills, learning motivation and social skills of the students. 

In relation to the special requirements of the schools, four thematic fields of action are in the foreground, for which individual measures are to be developed in close scientific and practical cooperation. These are:

1. to further develop teaching – with a special focus on mathematics and German,
2. to qualify the pedagogical staff working at the schools in a more targeted way, taking into account the specific conditions of schools in socially challenging situations,
3. further develop schools as an organization, school culture and leadership, and
4. to promote learning outside the classroom and support in the social environment.

In four regional centers of the interdisciplinary research network, the 200 participating schools are advised and supported in mastering their challenges in close cooperation with the state institutes, quality development agencies and school supervisory authorities. The scientific monitoring and evaluation is carried out by other working groups of the project network, the results of which are to be used to produce a recommendation for action after five years, which can be used as a handout to other schools in challenging situations.

GeLiNu

Low literacy (“functional illiteracy”) and numeracy – that is, difficulties in using mathematics – in adulthood often lead to considerable limitations in the lives of those affected.

To respond to this challenge of low literacy/numeracy, targeted education policy and pedagogical measures are necessary. To achieve this goal, extensive knowledge about the causes of low literacy/numeracy is essential. Unfortunately, no such extensive knowledge exists based on available research, especially regarding the factors causing low literacy/numeracy. The main reason for this is the general lack of longitudinal data. Both in Germany and the rest of the world, extant research is mostly based on studies seeking to analyze the phenomenon with a single instance of data gathering. They are hardly suited to research how low literacy/numeracy emerge – and under what circumstances they can be changed over time.

This cooperation project wanted to identify risk and protective factors for the development and change of low literacy and numeracy in German adults. With the help of data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), two main questions regarding low literacy/numeracy in German adults have been answered:

  1. Changeability: How stable are low literacy/numeracy and how changeable are they? How many people are successful in acquiring competencies over time and thus leave the domain of low literacy/numeracy? How many people slip into this domain over time?
  2. Complex causes: Which individual (e.g., cognitive and non-cognitive basic skills), structural and contextual factors (e.g., employment, family formation) influence the probability of such growths or losses in competencies?

Acquisiton of Knowledge in Geometry

How do basic competencies in geometry develop?

The project of the Leibniz Center of Excellence for Early Childhood Education focused on the promotion of children’s basic geometry competencies in preschool and the first years of school. The focus was on recognition and categorization of geometric figures as well as spatial navigation. The overarching question was how these basic geometry competencies can be enhanced and which role linguistic interactions play in this process. The project also seeked to identify whether promoting geometry competencies has an effect on processing of quantities and numbers or on arithmetic skills.

Development Contexts

What are the relationships between general cognitive abilities and domain-specific competences?

The project of the Leibniz Center of Excellence for Early Childhood Education examined early roots of competence development in cooperation with the University of Bamberg. Specifically, we analyzed links between general cognitive abilities (information processing skills, executive functions) and domain-specific competency development (linguistic, mathematical competencies) in early childhood. The role of language and language development received special attention. This was of particular importance for fostering development as language is both an important means of instruction and communication as well as a central means of mental representation. The project focused on two main topics which are analyzed using existing longitudinal data (NEPS, BiKS). On the one hand, we examined the influence of early skills at the ages of 7 and 16 months on later competency development in preschool. The second focus was on the relationship between linguistic, cognitive, mathematical and early science skills in the transition from preschool to primary school.

MoMa

Mathematics is a core competency that plays an important role in educational and professional success. The fact that particularly students in adolescence experience motivational slumps in mathematics reinforces the necessity of fostering motivation for mathematics. Initial US studies indicate that it is possible to favorably influence the motivation of students with the help of a simple intervention conducted in a classroom context.

The purpose of the project is to examine how well the motivation in mathematics instruction of 9th grade students can be enhanced based on these established intervention approaches.

Basic mathematical competencies

Children that show deficits in mathematics at an early age, generally do not catch up on these and suffer from long term problems. Little is known about how these skills develop after pre-school and elementary school. Initial studies indicate that some of them carry these deficits with basic mathematical competencies all the way through secondary school. At present only scattered evidence is available that poor basic arithmetic skills cause substantial difficulties in technical skills development. Additionally there is a shortage of standardized testing procedures for secondary schools that are able to differentiate between academically weak students and other students across different grades and different types of schools.

These research gaps was intended to be closed within the framework of two tightly interlocked projects.

IPN – Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education

The Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education (IPN) was established in 1966 as a research center for science education. As an institute of the Leibniz Association, the IPN has a nationwide function. It is also affiliated to the University of Kiel. The department heads at the IPN hold professorships at the University of Kiel.

The institute’s mission is to advance science and mathematics education through its research. Therefore, research deals with the full range of issues concerning teaching and learning in the sciences and in mathematics inside and outside schools. The institute comprises six departments: Educational Research, Educational Assessment and Measurement, Biology Education, Chemistry Education, Mathematics Education, and Physics Education. Approximately 170 people make up the IPN staff; about 130 work as researchers, including 60 doctoral students. About 50% of the staff work on projects funded by different research foundations or clients.

The IPN’s work ranges across the entire field of science, mathematics, and technology education. The IPN concentrates on long-term and nationwide research projects, which cannot be covered by universities.

The IPN research program focuses on following areas:

  • Aims and models of mathematics and science education
  • Prerequisites for teaching and learning mathematics and science
  • Implementation and Evaluation of Concepts for Subject-Specific Teaching and Learning Processes in Mathematics and Science
  • Promotion of Mathematics and Science through Competitions and Supplementary Learning Opportunities
  • Educational Assessment and Measurement

Besides its research activities, the IPN offers different transfer activities: Coordination of national and international student competitions in biology, chemistry, physics and environmental issues, programs for teacher education, and publications on science and mathematics education addressing teachers and scientists.