Dissertation Project Carina Gehlen
Issue of PhD-project Systematic analysis of students’ competencies in the area of competence acquirement of knowledge
International comparative studies like PISA (Baumert, Artelt, Klieme, Neubrand, Prenzel, Schiefele et al., 2003) and TIMSS (Baumert, Bos, Brockmann, Gruehn, Klieme, Köller et al., 2000) have led to an intense discussion about the educational sector in society, politics and research in Germany. As a consequence, the Standing Conference of German Ministers of Education has released National Educational Standards (NES) to define expectations for regular learning outcomes at secondary schools. The NES initiated a shift from an input-oriented educational system to an output-oriented one (Klieme, Avenarius, Blum, Döbrich, Gruber, Prenzel et al., 2003). In 2003 NES were implemented for the subjects German, mathematics and the first foreign language. In 2004 NES for the subjects biology, chemistry and physics followed (KMK, 2004). The aim of school education in the three natural sciences includes the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and processes in the sense of scientific literacy (Duit, Gropengießer & Stäudel, 2004). Knowing about scientific literacy is useful for personal decision making, participation in civil and cultural affairs and economic productivity. A definition of scientific literacy and the competencies belonging to it are given by the NES (Sekretariat der Ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2005). For the three science subjects the NES distinguishes between four areas of competence: use of content knowledge, acquirement of knowledge, scientific communication, and evaluation and judgement.
In 2007 the German Institute for Educational Progress (German: Institut zur Qualitätsentwicklung im Bildungswesen, IQB) assembled the interdisciplinary project “Evaluation of the National Educational Standards for Natural Sciences at the Lower Secondary Level” (ESNaS) for the evaluation of the implemented NES in science. The project aims at developing a framework model for test item construction and at creating a collection of standardized test items for the three science subjects in order to establish national performance scales based on the NES.
In this project (ESNaS) the expert coordination teams developed a three-dimensional competency model including the areas of competence as one dimension, plus a dimension referring to the complexity of a task and a third dimension referring to the cognitive processes of the students. As opposed to the area of competence use of content knowledge, the area of competence acquirement of knowledge was not structured by the NES. By assigning the standard statements to nationally and internationally accepted constructs in the field of scientific inquiry and reasoning, the structuring elements for this area of competence were derived (Abd-El-Khalick et al., 2004; Mayer, 2007; Lederman et al., 2002; Upmeier zu Belzen & Krüger, 2010; Mayer et al., 2009). Therefore in the ESNaS competence model the area of competence is subdivided into the sub-areas methods of scientific investigation, development of scientific models and theories and nature of science. The sub-areas are further divided into aspects. Figure 1 shows all sub-categories (sub-areas and aspects) which describe the area of competence acquirement of knowledge.
The Evaluation of the National Educational Standards is divided into two parts. First, the test items for the areas of competence content knowledge and acquirement of knowledge were developed (2008), examined and improved several times. A group of teachers from the various federal states was trained to develop test items based on the underlying model of competence. The test items were also evaluated by experts from science education, psychometrics and linguistics. After a number of pilot-studies with small samples and a data collection for a nationwide validation of the model, the nationwide assessment took place in 2012. During the nationwide assessment in 2012 nearly 50.000 students processed these test items in the first two areas of competence. The evaluation for the other two areas of competence will be conducted in the same way and nationwide assessment will take place in 2018.
The study´s aim is to allow further analysis of the outcome of the nationwide assessment for the area of competence acquirement of knowledge. The present data base does not contain enough items to differentiate every aspect of this area of competence, therefore only a general description of students’ competencies in this area of competence can be given. It is not possible to make a statement about the students’ competencies with regard to the sub-areas and aspects without creating new items which fill the data gap.
For this reason, the first step in the project is to develop new items to close this data gap. After that, a new sample in North Rhine-Westphalia including the new items will give some indication of students’ competencies in the area of competence acquirement of knowledge relating to the subareas and aspects.
Later on, an additional sample including new items and ESNaS items (anchor items) will make it possible to join the new data with those of the nationwide assessment. Based on these results, strengths and weaknesses of students’ competencies in terms of the sub-areas and aspects of the area of competence acquirement of knowledge (in Germany and especially in North Rhine-Westphalia) can be revealed and advice for school development derived.
Furthermore, the project aims at clarifying whether the sub-areas and aspects of the area of competence acquirement of knowledge are empirically separable in chemistry as they are in biology (Wellnitz, 2012). Previous tests (NAW-test, EEST-2) have not been able to prove this hypothesis yet (Henke, 2007; Marschner, 2011).
Project period
2012-2015
Funding
Haushalt
Advisor
Maik Walpuski
Dissertation project
Carina Gehlen