Refine
Document Type
- Working Paper (14)
- Doctoral Thesis (4)
Language
- English (18) (remove)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (18)
Keywords
- Mathematikdidaktik (3)
- Fremdsprachenunterricht (2)
- Gender (2)
- Informatikunterricht (2)
- Lehrerausbildung (2)
- Naturwissenschaften/Unterricht (2)
- Statistik (2)
- empirische Studie (2)
- Analyse (1)
- Analysekompetenz (1)
Institute
- Fakultät für Kultur- und Naturwissenschaften (18) (remove)
The notion of “bounded rationality” was introduced by Simon as an appropriate framework for explaining how agents reason and make decisions in accordance with their computational limitations and the characteristics of the environments in which they exist (seen metaphorically as two complementary scissor blades).We elaborate on how bounded rationality is usually conceived in psychology and on its relationship with logic. We focus on the relationship between heuristics and some non-monotonic logical systems. These two categories of cognitive tools share fundamental features. As a step further, we show that in some cases heuristics themselves can be formalized from this logic perspective. We have therefore two main aims: on the one hand, to demonstrate the relationship between the bounded rationality programme and logic, understood in a broad sense; on the other hand, to provide logical tools of analysis of already known heuristics. This may lead to results such as the characterization of fast and frugal binary trees in terms of their associated logic program here provided.
Females and students of non-dominant ethnicity are less likely to aspire to science careers. However, overcoming discrimination in science and chemistry is a challenging task, especially in vocational orientation. Thus, there is a need for strategies to support young women in their identity formation in science and chemistry. This article presents a scheme for supporting young women’s science identity formation in conversations about vocational orientation. The goal is to support young women in developing a positive attitude towards careers in chemistry. This attitude is part of cultural chemistry capital. The scheme was developed based on a study conducted as part of the project DiSenSu. Here, coachings for vocational orientation for young women in science and chemistry are provided, following the idea of Science in Public. In the coaching, the attitudes towards science and chemistry were determined using quantitative data. Based on these results, coaches conducted conversations with the participants. Qualitative analysis of 11 conversations revealed strategies coaches used to support young women in their vocational orientation. The study shows how the participants’ attitude towards careers in chemistry is used as a starting point for coachings. Also, it provides strategies that can be used to promote young women’s cultural chemistry capital.
We report on a study on syllogistic reasoning conceived with the idea that subjects' performance in experiments is highly dependent on the communicative situations in which the particular task is framed. From this perspective, we describe the results of Experiment 1 comparing the performance of undergraduate students in 5 different tasks. This between-subjects comparison inspires a within-subject intervention design (Experiment 2). The variations introduced on traditional experimental tasks and settings include two main dimensions. The first one focuses on reshaping the context (the pragmatics of the communication situations faced) along the dimension of cooperative vs. adversarial attitudes. The second one consists of rendering explicit the construction/representation of counterexamples, a crucial aspect in the definition of deduction (in the classical semantic sense). We obtain evidence on the possibility of a significant switch in students' performance and the strategies they follow. Syllogistic reasoning is seen here as a controlled microcosm informative enough to provide insights and we suggest strategies for wider contexts of reasoning, argumentation and proof.
cpm.4.CSE/IRT (compact process model for Competence Science Education based on IRT models) is a process model for competence measurement based on IRT models. It allows the efficient development of measuring instruments for computer science education. Cpm.4.CSE/IRT consists of four sub processes: B1 determine items, B2 test items, B3 analyze items according to Rasch model, and B4 interpret items by criteria. Cpm.4.CSE/IRT is modeled in IDEF0, a process modeling language that is standardized and widely used. It is implemented in R, an open-source software optimized for statistical calculations and graphics that allows users to interact using the web application framework Shiny. Through coordinated processes, cpm.4.CSE/IRT ensures the quality and comparability of test instruments in competence measurement. Cpm.4.CSE/IRT is demonstrated using an example from the competence area of Modeling.
In Germany, secondary school students differ greatly in their science achievement, a dispersion that is far above the OECD average (Schiepe-Tiska, Rönnebeck, & Neumann, 2019). Immigrant students tend to be at the lower end of the scale in Germany – on average, they achieve substantially less well in science than non-immigrant students (OECD, 2016d), which is partially due to the German school system (Zoido, 2013). These differences in achievement translate into underrepresentation of immigrants in science-related jobs in Germany (OECD, 2008). Achievement and career choices are closely intertwined with academic self-concept (for an overview see Marsh & Craven, 2006). Regarding science self-concept, the pattern that immigrant students tend to score lower is present in many countries (e.g. Riegle-Crumb, Moore, & Ramos-Wada, 2011).
The goal of the present research project was to investigate these inequalities between immigrant and non-immigrant secondary school students. This was done focusing on secondary school students’ chemistry self-concepts. Chemistry self-concepts were focused on because achievement in chemistry is an important factor for careers in natural sciences (Cohen & Kelly, 2019). Research on chemistry self-concept has concentrated on young adults (e.g. Bauer, 2005; Xu & Lewis, 2011) and so little is known about secondary school students. Besides the impact of students’ migration background, the research project analyses the role that gender plays because gender has important effects on science self-concepts (e.g. Jurik, Gröschner, & Seidel, 2013; Riegle-Crumb et al., 2011; Wan & Lee, 2017).
A big challenge in this context was that the prevailing methods in academic self-concept research are prone to yield biased data (Byrne, 2002; Byrne et al., 2009). Although this was pointed out more than 15 years ago, the problem persists in science self-concept research. The present research project addresses this issue and presents a new mixed methods approach to culture-sensitive academic self-concept research. The term ‘culture’ is used in the sense of migration background, a concept that categorizes people’s migration histories in Germany. A combination of qualitative interview data and quantitative data permit an investigation of certain types of bias defined by Byrne and colleagues (2009). The pilot study operated with a chemistry self-concept questionnaire (N=116) and qualitative interviews (N=43). The main study was based on an extended questionnaire comprising several other scales (N=585) and deeper qualitative interviews (N=48).
The hypotheses based on the literature were that in Germany, (h1) immigrant students would show more negative chemistry self-concepts than non-immigrant students. (h2) Female students would show more negative chemistry self-concepts than male students. The third hypothesis (h3) was that the home environment has an important impact on students’ chemistry self-concepts. The first two hypotheses (h1 and h2) were not confirmed. Gender and migration background did not show a significant effect on students’ chemistry self-concepts. Instead, gender relations differ depending on the students’ migration background. Among students without a migration background, boys tend to have stronger chemistry self-concepts than girls. In contrast, among students with a Turkish migration background, girls tend to have stronger chemistry self-concepts. Existing science self-concept literature did not explain this.
Literature on gender relations in science in Turkey suggests that this interaction effect could be due to a more gender-neutral conception of science in Turkey. Slightly more women than men work in science in Turkey (OECD, 2009a) and girls achieve substantially better (Batyra, 2017a, 2017b). According to the third hypothesis (h3), the gender conceptions in Turkey could potentially be transmitted to students with a Turkish migration background in the home environment, through their parents or other people.
Science education literature did not provide a satisfying model for conceptualizing the influence of the home environment on students in the field of chemistry that would allow investigating the third hypothesis (h3). Therefore, the concept of chemistry capital was introduced based on the analysis of the interviews in the main study. Chemistry capital was developed based on the concept of science capital by Archer and colleagues (2015). Chemistry capital conceptualizes the resources a person possesses that have value in the field of chemistry. This encompasses social networks (e.g. knowing a chemist) as well as emotional and cognitive resources (e.g. attitudes towards chemistry and chemistry knowledge), and the engagement in chemistry-related activities. In particular, the concept allows analyzing the transmission processes of chemistry from the home environment to the individual student.
The qualitative analyses in the main study showed that the chemistry capital home environment influences the students in the field of chemistry in multiple ways. This supports hypothesis 3 (h3). Further, the data suggest that structural inequalities in the German school system might foster differences in chemistry. Students who already possess little chemistry capital in their home environments are in addition found more often at the type of school (Hauptschule) in which the proportion of chemistry teachers who do not hold a university degree in chemistry is the highest, depriving these students of another possible source of chemistry capital. Vice versa, students who already possess a lot of chemistry capital in their home environments more often attend school types (Gymnasium, Realschule) where also more formally qualified chemistry teachers are available, thus potentially widening the gap.
The mixed methods analysis in the main study suggested that a simple linear relationship between student chemistry self-concept and chemistry capital in the home environment does not exist. A study based on quantitative (or mixed methods) analyses of data of a larger sample on chemistry capital in the home environment and students’ chemistry self-concepts could provide further insights. It is not yet clear if the third hypothesis (h3) is true.
To sum up, the present research project thus advances the field of chemistry education in three regards: (i) it provides an approach to culture-sensitive academic self-concept. This approach proved to increase both the validity and the explanatory power of chemistry self-concept research. It is not chemistry-specific and can, thus, be used in other areas of research as well. (ii) The research discovered an interaction effect of gender and migration background on chemistry self-concept that was unknown in science education literature. (iii) It introduces and defines the concept of chemistry capital which permits to analyze chemistry education from a sociocultural perspective. Employing the concept of chemistry capital helps to shift the focus from the individual student to the resources a student possesses in the sociocultural context that help him or her succeed in the field of chemistry. This allows uncovering social inequalities in the field that need to be addressed in educational policy. Moreover, it can inspire intervention studies and application-focused research (e.g. approaches to culture-sensitive chemistry teaching).
In the last three decades many research studies focused on the topic of multiple representations and their role for learning mathematics. As a result, there is a broad consensus in the scientific community that dealing with multiple representations in the mathematics classroom is a highly relevant matter. However, research addressing the role of the teachers in this context is still scarce. Consequently, this dissertation study raises the question of how much teachers know about and acknowledge this key role of multiple representations for the mathematics classroom. To this end, not only different aspects of teachers' specific professional knowledge and their views were investigated, but also their noticing of changes of representations in instances of student-teacher interaction, which can be seen as a theme-specific noticing. Using a multi-layer model of professional knowledge, this study addresses in particular questions of how such specific aspects of professional knowledge are interrelated and what components of knowledge and views play a role for the teachers' theme-specific noticing.
These research interests were addressed in the scope of three substudies, each of them including two different subsamples (English pre-service teachers/German pre-service teachers, pre-service teachers/in-service teachers, respectively in-service teachers at academic track secondary schools/in-service teachers at secondary schools for lower attaining students), in order to explore the possible roles of cultural background, teaching experience, and school types.
The different aspects of specific professional knowledge and views were assessed by means of a questionnaire instrument. For eliciting the teachers' theme-specific noticing, vignette-based questions were implemented. The data was analyzed mainly by quantitative methods, was however complemented by a qualitative in-depth analysis focusing on how the teachers' theme-specific noticing was informed by different components of their professional knowledge.
The results of this study suggest that the participants did not fully understand the key role of multiple representations for learning mathematics in the sense of their discipline-specific signicance and thus indicate specific needs for teacher education and professional development. Differences between the subsamples of teachers became apparent especially regarding the teachers' more situated professional knowledge and their noticing with respect to dealing with multiple representations. Furthermore, the findings of this study underpin the assumption that within the spectrum between teachers' situated and global professional knowledge and views regarding dealing with multiple representations, different components may be distinguished and suggest that in particular all of these components may play a role for teachers' theme-specific noticing.
Research has identified 10 high-leverage teaching practices (HLTPs) that can impact student learning of a foreign language. While acknowledging the importance of this work, more research is needed to inform the preparation of novice teachers to enact these practices. In response, the researchers conducted a case study involving two foreign language teacher preparation programs in the United States and Germany, to better understand how the two very different programs prepare their candidates to implement HLTPs, which HLTPs are emphasized, and how successful they are at preparing their aspiring teachers to implement one practice that has been identified in the research as particularly important (facilitating target language comprehensibility). Survey, teaching observation, and interview data collected from teacher candidates and their instructors suggested the critical nature of select HLTPs, that some of the subcomponents of one of these practices may be more challenging for novice teachers to master than others, and that there may be multiple approaches to preparing foreign language teachers to implement HLTPs.
We investigated retrieval-induced forgetting of motor sequences in samples of Chinese participants. Retrieval-induced forgetting occurs when selective retrieval of a subset of information stored in memory causes forgetting for the non-retrieved rest. This phenomenon critically depends on the organised storage of separate categories of memory representations. In studies with participants from a Western culture (Germany), a categorization in left- and right-hand movements previously had been supported by letter stimuli based on a spatial mental representation of the Roman alphabet. The same assignment of letters from the beginning or end of the alphabet to motor sequences performed either with the left- or the right-hand did not entail retrieval-induced forgetting in the present study, however (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, visual features of displaying to-be-learned sequences additionally supported a distinction into left and right. In Experiment 3, learning trials provided verbal category labels. The occurrence of retrieval-induced forgetting in the latter two experiments suggests language-dependent organisation of non-verbal items in memory.
Gamification and game-based learning have been established as powerful tools in education. Location-based games (geogames) have been established following mainly a ‘seek-and-find’ game-mechanic, challenging mechanics like simulations are rarely used. We describe an approach for creating an educational location-based game (geogame). The central design problem consists in integrating an ecological simulation into the location-based game flow. We show how to combine these two game mechanics by simplifying complex simulations while maintaining their validity. In an empirical study we evaluate our geogame with secondary school students (N = 329). Our quasi-experimental pre-post-test design focuses on the game-related enjoyment provided by a simplified simulation task within a geogame compared to a more complex desktop simulation and to a geogame without simulation. The results show that the players of the Geogame spend much less time on interacting with the simulation than on other tasks. Nevertheless, the simulation within the geogame contributes positively to the game playing experience. Player enjoyment is even found to be slightly higher in the simulation geogame than in the indoor simulation. A critical threshold of time for using simulations within location-based game mechanics is discussed and related design-pattern for geogames are presented to support educators and game developers in the co-design of challenging location-based games. This study contributes to locate ecological simulations in areas where they actually take place. Complex topics and competencies in education become “real” for players in an outdoor experience.