Julia Gerick

ICT use in mathematics lessons and the mathematics achievement of secondary school students by international comparison: Which role do school level factors play?

By means of an international comparison, the research presented in the article aims to identify supporting and hindering school level factors for the use of ICT in secondary school mathematics lessons. The relationship between ICT use and the performance of Grade 9 students in mathematics is examined and further integrated into a multi-level model including school level factors. Against the background of a theoretical allocation (1) the IT equipment of schools, (2) school leadership, (3) aspects of school goals and educational strategies as well as (4) teachers’ attitudes will be analyzed by means of a multi-level regression model as well as a multi-level path model including the mathematics achievement of students as measured in the context of PISA 2012. Representative school and student data from five countries, namely Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Singapore are taken into consideration, as the integration of ICT in teaching and learning is firmly emphasized in these countries (overall 24,579 students in 1263 schools). By modeling the complex structure, school characteristics are examined with respect to their effect on the use of ICT for mathematics teaching. Moreover, the relation between different factors and students’ mathematics achievement will be synchronously assessed in the different educational systems. The results show that characteristics at school level do play a major role in the integration of ICT into teaching and learning and turn out to be relevant across the educational systems. In addition to further in-depth country-specific findings, the results point to cross-national future challenges in the field of using technologies to enhance teaching and learning.

The international computer and information literacy study from a European perspective: Introduction to the Special Issue

The International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS 2013) provides, for the first time, information about students’ computer and information literacy (CIL), as well as its acquisition, based on a computer-based test for students and background questionnaires. Among the 21 education systems that participated in ICILS 2013, there are 12 European countries, making secondary comparative in-depth analyses at a European level particularly fruitful. Accordingly, while the four articles in this Special Issue each deal with different topics and adopt different methodologies, they all share a common element and provide European comparisons in the ICILS context. The editorial in turn outlines the aim of the ICILS 2013 study and its relevance for European education research as well as its contextual framework and approach to the measurement of students’ CIL. The potential and challenges of such large-scale assessment studies are also discussed.

Zum Stellenwert neuer Technologien für die individuelle Förderung im Deutschunterricht in der Grundschule

Der Umgang mit Heterogenitat ist eine zentrale Herausforderung fur den Primarbereich. Dies ist mit gestiegenen Anforderungen fur Grundschulen verknupft (u. a. Heinzel / Prengel 2002), die auf der Unterrichtsebene zu neuen Aufgaben im Hinblick auf die Individualisierung von Lernprozessen fuhren. Seit einigen Jahren werden in diesem Zusammenhang die Potenziale des Einsatzes neuer Technologien zur individuellen Forderung diskutiert, die neue Moglichkeiten der Unterstutzung von unterschiedlichen Lernwegen und -methoden bieten und Lernen in unterschiedlichen Lerntempi oder auf unterschiedlichen Leistungsniveaus ermoglichen sollen (u. a. BMBF 2007; Eickelmann 2010; Schulz-Zander et al. 2010).