Homework is a central component of school education and is utilized with the intention to raise students’ performance. Nevertheless, in regards to the effect of the assignment and completion of homework there is a considerable gap between the intended educational relevance and its empirical validation.
The project addressed this gap of empirical research and explored this subject matter in four interrelated partial studies which reanalyzed longitudinally recorded data of almost 2000 eight-graders with the help of latent-profile-models.
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.
What defines a good teacher? Not only is this the topic of the study but it is also a frequent matter of public debate. As of yet educational research lacks a clear theoretical concept and an instrument derived therefrom which renders educational and psychological knowledge empirically accessible.
This was the starting point of the ThinK research program which, devided into three sub-projects, pursued the following questions:
- How can educational psychological knowledge be conceptualized?
- How can it be captured reliably, validly and economically with the help of digital media?
- How significant is this knowledge for educational success?
- How do individual groups of teachers (i.e. teachers of varying educational contexts and subjects) differ?
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.
Instructional design is of crucial significance in students’ educational progress. It is often possible to make connections between aspects of classroom management, student-orientation, or the level of stimulus with the learning progress in mathematics or German. However, measuring or assessing such qualitative characteristics remains a great challenge.
The project addressed the quality of student evaluations. Both established analytical models for the evaluation of nested verdicts were reviewed and frequently used survey instruments (items) were processed.
PISA Plus was a longitudinal national add-on study to the PISA 2012 survey in which the performance of the same students was tested who had been tested one year before. The study used PISA-tasks as well as tasks of the competence-test for education standards.
The study aimed to show perceptions on the influencing factors of students’ competence development and to motivate developing and validating methods for data evaluation (control sampling, scaling of performance data).
The research focused on the following question:
- What kind of increases in competencies and knowledge can be made through PISA tests and other tests for reviewing the accomplishing of education standards within the academic year?
- What influencing factors can be seen on the development of (mathematical) competencies of students by repeating classes?
- What characteristics in teaching classes are influencing the performance and motivational development of students?
- Are there reciprocal correlations between competencies, motivational characteristics and interests of students?
- What are the impacts of social and immigration related characteristics for developing competencies?
- What effects on student competencies do school level related factors have in the face of teaching structure and outcome?
As part of the project, an online tool was developed with which (prospective) teachers of all subjects and types of schools can search for and download teaching methods for language-sensitive teaching free of charge. The handouts not only explain the methods themselves, but also provide information on possible variations and how to incorporate multilingualism.
Users of the online tool can filter the methods according to the linguistic competence area to be promoted, the language action to be promoted, the age group of the students, the time frame, and the social form of the planned teaching unit. Depending on the fit to these criteria, the offered methods appear larger, smaller or not at all.
Since the end of 2021, the methods have also been successively supplemented with digital implementation options as part of the ComeIn NRW project (Communities of Practice NRW for Innovative Teacher Education) in collaboration with students of the DaZ module at the University of Cologne, which is indicated by an asterisk* in the user interface of the method pool. In so-called dashboards, impulses for the didactically meaningful implementation of the respective methods in the digital context can be called up using a selected digital tool. The new possibilities for language sensitivity and the inclusion of multilingualism opened up by the digital space are highlighted in relation to the respective methods and illustrated by means of a screencast.
The tool is available on the website of the MI.
The project related to the preliminary work done by the DIE, where an application for course planning was developed in the context of advanced training. The experience gathered there will be used for enabling students and teachers the access to a low-threshold collection of methods for planning language-sensitive lessons.
This research and development project aimed at developing, testing and evaluating the web-based search engine KANSAS. KANSAS will support teachers in adult literacy and German as a second language in preparing classes. Using the search engine, teachers will be enabled to determine both the topic and the linguistic complexity of texts to be searched on the internet and in electronic corpora. Taking into account the learners interests as well as their individual level of reading competence, KANSAS allows teachers to perfectly adjust the query to the needs of their course participants. Moreover, teachers can upload self-developed texts in order to analyze the language complexity. In addition to that, a simplified version of KANSAS will be developed, enabling advanced learners to search for texts with an appropriate level of language complexity on their own.
The interdisciplinary project KANSAS was conducted by the three collaboration partners under direction of the German Institute for Adult Education – Leibniz Centre for Lifelong Learning. The German Institute of Adult Education (DIE) carried out several usability and quasi-experimental studies to evaluate the efficacy of the search engine. The MI examined the didactic suitability of the texts searched by KANSAS. Computational linguists of the University of Tübingen technically implemented the search engine and adapted it to the users’ needs. In close collaboration of all partners involved, several developmental versions of the search engine were released during the project term in order to test and optimize KANSAS.
The aim of the project “The Power of Reading – Elementary Schools” are
- early recognition of children with difficulties in acquiring written language
- deriving individual support based on diagnostic findings
- documentation of learning development for working with parents and defining an educational plan with specialists
- prevention of reading and spelling difficulties
For this purpose, the MI, together with the IPN and the Institute for Quality Development in Schools in Schleswig-Holstein (IQSH) in cooperation with the Cornelsen-Publishing House, is developing a two-part work material combined in a student- and teacher-booklet for diagnosing and supporting of reading and writing skills in elementary schools. The participating teachers are prepared for the implementation of the individual milestones in regular regional training events, the derived support measures are discussed and experiences are exchanged.
Starting in the 2018/19 school year, “Lesen macht stark” launched in first grade with a training concept that complements the diagnostic material. The Mercator Institute is providing scientific advice on the development of the materials for the remedial training and is accompanying its introduction in the schools by researching the implementation conditions. It investigates the conditions under which teachers accept the training program and whether they use the material in accordance with the concept.
The federal state of Berlin initiated an evaluation of the Federal European School in Berlin (SESB). As part of the EUROPE study, from 2014 to 2017, the linguistic, subject-related and intercultural competence of SESB pupils were compared to those of conventionally taught pupils.
Furthermore, the study seeked to review the implementation of the SESB concept regarding the composition of the student body and the use of teachers, accompanied by a survey of parents.
A particular advantage of the EUROPE study was the assessment of competence in the non-German languages based on tests of the international student assessments TIMSS, PIRLS and PISA. This approach made it possible to compare the performances of the SESB pupils with those pupils from countries where these languages are actually spoken.