Currently, large scale assessments have noticeably encouraged the research interest in the systemic context which academic learning is embedded in. However, so far there are hardly any empirically validated findings concerning the interrelation between the conditions of academic learning on both, the level of the school system as well as on the individual school’s level, and their subject-specific impacts upon learning outcomes. Thus, these correlations are this project’s object of research. The establishment of natural science subjects in the educational courses of forms 5 to 10 on the level of the educational system and their integration within the individual school’s “cultural inner life” on the single school level is being researched. The context criteria for successful natural science tuition which have to be elaborated will make a contribution to the design and development of intervention strategies at a subsequent stage of the researchers` overall enterprise.  
 
Hence, an instrument for quality enhancement in the field of natural science education ought to emerge.  
 
Project Details

A preceding study by Sumfleth and Wild investigated whether the use of a co-operative learning strategy through complex and open-ended investigative tasks is more effective in changing students’ everyday concepts to scientific concepts in chemistry than direct instruction. They found that the intervention group showed a slightly higher increase in learning than the control group although several problems in the intervention group occurred. While the teacher in the control group collects the relevant ideas of the students and corrects mistakes during experimentation, the students of the intervention group are often unable to identify and correct their own mistakes while working alone. As a consequence it can be said that cooperative teaching does now only little benefit from the advantages of conventional teaching – that is, being well-structured and organised – and does have the potential to be improved.  
 
Follow up Project: TP 05 Small group learning(2006-2009)