Jean-Luc Patry

Combining Values and Knowledge Education

Teachers usually say that they would like to do moral and social education and that they would like to teach for autonomy and critical thinking and the like (cf. Patry & Hofmann 1998). In the curricula such goals are also very frequently formulated, although usually in the prefaces and not in the content sections. The parents claim that students should not only learn cognitive content knowledge; rather social learning, civic education and the like should be done as well as values education, although without interfering with the values defended at home. In educational policy and public debates, schools are frequently blamed for not doing social education. The teachers would like to comply. However, there is a gap between what teachers would like to do and what they actually do: the teachers in the study mentioned above said that they teach much less for autonomy and moral development than for subject matters and that dealing with disciplinary issues is more important than they would like. They argue that there is no time for this given the tough program they have to accomplish within rigid time constraints, that there are too many students in class and that they do not know how to teach social learning because they have not been trained for that (Hofmann & Patry 1999). The latter argument is certainly appropriate since in teacher training, typically, students learn little about social and moral education. On the other hand, research has provided few models of social and moral education that teachers could use without inhibiting content knowledge acquisition. Knowledge education and values education are typically seen as antagonists: doing one automatically inhibits doing the other, and it is supposed that the two goals cannot be combined. We want to present here a teaching model that permits just this: the combination of both values and knowledge education in such a way that the students achieve both goals more successfully than if done separately. Briefly said – we will present more details below – the moral dilemma discussion in the tradition of Blatt and Kohlberg (1975) is used not only to trigger a debate on moral issues, but also to initiate a discussion on content, or knowledge, or information on the topic. The concept was prompted by the experience that (a) participants are very motivated by dilemma discussions, but often (b) do not have sufficient knowledge to argue on a high level, but rather (c) are looking for such information. One such experience is the following: a secondary school teacher wanted to do a moral dilemma discussion with his students about the dilemma whether a nuclear

Methodological Consequences of Situation Specificity: Biases in Assessments

Social research is plagued by many biases. Most of them are due to situation specificity of social behavior and can be explained using a theory of situation specificity. The historical background of situation specificity in personality social psychology research is briefly sketched, then a theory of situation specificity is presented in detail, with as centerpiece the relationship between the behavior and its outcome which can be described as either “the more, the better” or “not too much and not too little.” This theory is applied to reliability and validity of assessments in social research. The distinction between “maximum performance” and “typical performance” is shown to correspond to the two behavior-outcome relations. For maximum performance, issues of reliability and validity are much easier to be solved, whereas typical performance is sensitive to biases, as predicted by the theory. Finally, it is suggested that biases in social research are not just systematic error, but represent relevant features to be explained just as other behavior, and that the respective theories should be integrated into a theory system.

Values and Knowledge Education

VaKE (Values and Knowledge Education) is a didactical approach in which moral and values education is combined with knowledge construction. Both is done on a constructivist base, the principle being that a moral dilemma is presented and discussed as in usual moral and values education in the tradition of Blatt and Kohlberg (1975). However, the dilemma is constructed in such a way that the students lack information to deal adequately with it, and they are highly motivated to find responses to the questions that have arisen during the values debate.

Peer Reviewers' Dilemmas: Values Antinomies when Evaluating Higher Education Institutions.

Whenever evaluations are done, there are antinomies of interests both within and between stakeholders. To account for such antinomies, taxonomy has been developed which will be presented and discussed using the peerreview processes in university evaluations as example. The taxonomy contains four dimensions: a) seven values domains are distinguished (ethical, methods, social and interactive, legal, economic, personal, and societal values); antinomies can be within or between domains; b) antinomies can be of the either-or-type (dichotomy; “alternative antinomy”), or they can be of the more-or-less type (more of one issue implies less of the other; “gradual antinomy”); c) there are antinomies on the goal dimension (different goals of the same or of different stakeholders are in antinomy, i.e., cannot be achieved simultaneously) and on the means dimension (although the goals are not in antinomy, the means to achieve them are incompatible), on both dimensions there can be alternative and gradual antinomies; d) a normative hierarchy for decision making in the case of antinomies is proposed and argued for. In evaluating higher education institutions with peer review, all types of antinomies can be found. Examples for such antinomies we have encountered in practical evaluations will be given, and a prototypical antinomy will be analyzed in detail: The peers are seen as stakeholders, and their interests and goals will be discussed (antinomies within one stakeholder). Applying the normative hierarchy can help to find a solution, yet it cannot replace the evaluators’ personal decision.

Autonomy-supportive learning with VaKE (Values and Knowledge Education) in teacher education. Fostering empathy and cognitive complexity.

The aim of this study is to examine enhanced autonomy-supportive teaching with VaKE (Values and Knowledge Education) in teacher education. VaKE is a constructivist teaching and learning approach which combines values and knowledge education, providing possibilities for autonomous learning. A quasi-experiment was applied with N = 43 pre-service teachers in an Austrian university of teacher education. The standard VaKE was compared with VaKE focusing on enhanced autonomy-supportive teaching by providing option choices. Dependent variables were the capacity to take the perspective of others (empathy) and the capacity to deal adequately with multiple sources of knowledge (cognitive complexity). The results indicate that empathy and cognitive complexity can be increased when providing enhanced cognitive autonomy support with VaKE. The main conclusion is that pre-service teachers can benefit in their moral as well as knowledge-related capacities when learning according to VaKE with provided option choices.

Vake (Values and Knowledge Education)

The development of moral values is considered an important goal in education. Empirical studies from different countries show that there is widespread agreement among teachers about the significance of values education as an integral element of formal and professional education (e.g., Klaassen, 2002; Mahoney, 2009; Sockett & LePage, 2002; Tatto, Arellano, Uribe, Varella, & Rodriguez, 2001; Thornberg, 2008; Thornberg & Oguz, 2013; Veugelers & de Kat, 1999).

Teachers’ Perspectives About Participation at School

These examples show very well the low importance of values concerning participation like democratic understanding of designing a learning environment, of values like self-determination, autonomy of students, etc. Self-determination and self-regulated learning processes seem to be neglected in the teachers’ subjective concepts, and they seem to be not so important for their teaching.