For actively participating in school, daily life or at work excellent German language skills are needed. While learning a new languague teachers have a key role in teaching German as a second language. The project COLD (Competencies of school teachers and adult educators in teaching German as a second language in linguistically diverse classrooms) focuses on the following questions:
- What skills and knowledge do teachers have?
- How do they structure their lessons?
- Are there any differences between school teachers and adult educators?
The project is a cooperation between DIE and the MI and is led by the DIE.
From April 2019 until September 2022 researchers will focus on professional competencies of school teachers and adult educators in teaching German as a second language in linguistically heterogeneous groups. The project adresses the special needs in teaching and didactics which occured through the immigration of children, teenagers and adults. The surveys take place in real teaching situations in preparatory classes and integration courses.
The interdisciplinary project team includes experts in adult education, subject-related didactics German/German as a second language, empirical educational research, linguistics, computer lingustics, and psychology. The project is mainly performed by PhD students so that a special focus on promoting young researches is set.
In two project phases, INSIDE provides comprehensive and reliable information for the first time on the current implementation of school inclusion at lower secondary level and on the transition of pupils with special educational needs to upper secondary level, the vocational training system or another life situation. INSIDE creates a sound data basis by surveying various groups of people involved in inclusion, such as children and young people with and without special educational needs, parents, teachers, school management and school support staff. On the one hand, this can contribute to the creation of a basis for political objectives to promote inclusion in everyday school life and at the transition to education and work, and on the other hand it is made available to the scientific community for further research purposes.
The BERLIN study evaluated the structural reform of Berlin’s secondary school system. One goal of the study was to compare students’ competencies in the domains of economics, labour, technics and vocational education before and after the reform. Since no achievement tests for these fields existed, a new test had been developed within the study to evaluate the students’ knowledge at the end of lower secondary school.
The multimedia textbook (MBook) developed by Waltraud Schreiber’s research group was an interactive and customizable study- and workbook for a classroom setting which reveals its own principles of construction and was prototypically developed for history lessons. Technically and didactically this browser-based and hyperactive book was a new development for competence-based teaching.
The main potential of the MBook lied in the possibility of its use both as a promotional tool as well as a research instrument. The project scientifically examined the capability of the multimedia textbook.
The project examined whether and how the instructional and extra-curricular utilization data can be applied towards the clarification of skills development.
Final report (in German).
Educational Monitoring at the Community Level (KBM) was a project within the framework program for “Learning in the community“ (LvO), funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) – the LvO initiative was jointly launched by BMBF and German foundations. Educational monitoring can be understood as a continuous, largely data-based process of observing and analysing an education system in its entirety as well as its individual components, for the purpose of informing educational policy and the public regarding framework conditions, process characteristics, outcomes and benefits of educational processes. The KBM project and participating communities (districts, local authorities) created a foundation for a coherent educational management and for evidence-based educational policy.
The German Education Index (FIS Bildung Literaturdatenbank) presents the most comprehensive compilation of educationally relevant references in the German language area. This service predominantly targets educational science (research and training), but it also delivers comprehensive services to educational practitioners (pre-primary school, primary and secondary education, special needs education etc.). The database records scholarly literature from all of the disciplines in educational science, as well as educational policy papers and practice-related texts and materials. Printed and online material published after 1980 is indexed: Journal articles, collective works, contributions to collective works, and monographs are described by keywords and occasionally abstracts. Users are assisted in obtaining titles by direct links indicating where journals are held in German libraries and other links informing about the obtainability of journals.
This digital humanities project has been conceived as a template for future projects and will examine a period in history characterised by the accelerated generation of knowledge, and by simultaneous globalisation and nationalisation. The project was committed to close collaborations between historians and information scientists in order to secure new academic findings. In trans-disciplinary explorative research, reusable instruments were being developed for the analysis of large (digital) source corpora, which can cope with the semantics of diverse nineteenth century educational media and detect ‘qualitative’ structures. Such techniques, in turn, created new ways of accessing ‘mass’ sources, which mirrored and shaped the contemporary interpretation of the world and elements of cultural memory, but which are all but impenetrable using hermeneutic methods. Diachronous and synchronous analysis were employed to enable the (trans)formation of knowledge stocks and the meta analysis of the cognitive potential, and boundaries, of digital processes.
The BERLIN-study evaluated the structural reform of Berlin‘s secondary school system. This reform merged the two non-academic tracks (Hauptschule, Realschule) as well as the comprehensive school (Gesamtschule) into one track called the “integrated secondary school” (Integrierte Sekundarschule, ISS) while retaining the academic track, the Gymnasium. Another feature of the reform was increased parental choice: parents may now send their children to any secondary school within the city boundaries and are not restricted to schools in their neighborhood.
In the course of the study an achievement test for the assessment of student competencies in economics – labour – technics – vocational orientation (WATB) was developed.
PIAAC-L further pursues PIAAC in Germany. The project is conducted by a consortium consisting of the Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences (GESIS), the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) at the German Institute for Economic Research, DIW Berlin, and the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LifBi) in Bamberg. Test takers from PIAAC in Germany are re-interviewed three more times, respectively subjected to alternative competence measures. Moreover, PIAAC-L targets an assessment of family members or partners. PIAAC-L encompasses three assessment cycles, i.e. one each in 2014, 2015, and 2016, focusing on different priorities.
Project Objectives
Generally speaking, PIAAC-L is one of the first internationally comparable longitudinal studies of adult competencies and their relevance in the life-course. PIAAC-L aims to deliver answers to the following questions: How do individual competencies affect the employment history of people in Germany? How are individual skills linked to professional mobility? How are competencies distributed among family members or partners? What does this mean for social progress in our society?
Being part of the project the TBA Centre supports GESIS in adapting, implementing and supporting the computer-based test instruments in the second PIAAC-L wave in 2015.
The project “Interventions for Improving Language Skills in Three to Six-Year-Old Children in Day-Care Facilities in German-Speaking Countries: A Systematic Review ” aimed to give an overview over which interventions exist for improving language skills in the children’s first language and national language of instruction in German-speaking countries. Moreover, it was reviewed the current knowledge regarding which language intervention approaches will (or can) deliver which effects in the context of specific institutional and individual conditions.
Language competencies are among the prerequisites for individual success in education. In Germany, children with delays in language development or children with an immigrant background whose native tongue is not the language of instruction bear a significantly higher risk of experiencing poorer school and vocational progress than might be expected given their general cognitive skills. Consequently, unrestrained participation in society is endangered owing to delays in the cognitive, emotional and social development of the children concerned.
Policy makers in Germany have recognised that society needs to foster educationally relevant language competencies even in very young children, a need that has recently gained in urgency by the arrival and likely stay of large groups of refugees from war zones in Asia and Africa. As yet, it remains an open question, however, how to best proceed: Which language intervention approaches will (or can) deliver which effects in the context of specific institutional and individual conditions?
The proposed project aimed to remedy the situation and to systematically document and integrate the available information about successfully tried and tested language interventions.
