Project Schedule

ProwiN is layed out in two phases, each estimated to last three years.

 

Phase 1

In the project's first three-year phase, a model for professional knowledge, including its three categories of content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge, will be developed for the subjects of biology, chemistry and physics. To validate this model, corresponding tests will be developed, adapted and evaluated based on external criteria. Teachers' content knowledge tests will be conceptualized based on the individual subjects, while a pedagogical content knowledge test will be developed independent of the individual subjects. Based on these tests, expected, theoretical relations between the three dimensions of professional knowledge as well as any possible correlations with external variables (e.g. number of completed subject courses) will also be empirically validated.

Phase 2

In the third year, a coding manual for video-supported lesson analyses and a student achievement test will be developed and evaluated.  The video analysis of school lessons, designated to take place in the project's second phase, will be prepared in the final year of the project's first phase;  this will be done in reference to the model of professional knowledge, which is expected to have been validated by this stage.  In the second phase, surface-level characteristics of videotaped lessons (lesson format, interaction, group work, etc., see Seidel et al., 2006) will be examined by video analysis to be able to select lesson excerpts for the planned high-inferent analyses.  This also involves, among other things, components such as lesson management and teacher behavior (Clausen, 2002; Trendel et al., 2007), design of experiments (Tesch, 2005; Walpuski, 2006), the handling of tasks (Jatzwauk, 2007; Lau et al., 2008), content structure of the lesson (Brückmann, 2008), as well as the handling of student perceptions/cognitive activation (Baumert et al., 2006; Lau et al., 2008; Trendel et al., 2007); compare Figure 2.  According to the model of professional knowledge, these components will be classified into the categories of content knowledge (CK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and pedagogical knowledge (PK).

The category system and coding manual for the high-inferent analyses will be designed such that the results of the video analyses and the results of the individual knowledge tests for teachers and students can be examined in relation to each other.