Katharina Maag Merki

Handbuch Neue Steuerung im Schulsystem

In den deutschsprachigen Schulsystemen werden Elemente eines ,neuen Steuerungsmodells’ − beispielsweise Bildungsstandards, Schulinspektionen oder Selbstevaluation − implementiert. Die Innovationen werden in diesem durchgehend aktualisierten Handbuch einer systematischen Analyse unterzogen. Damit bietet das Handbuch einen differenzierten Uberblick uber Prozesse und Wirkungen einer erneuerten schulischen Governance. Die Ergebnisse machen unterschiedliche theoretische, forschungsstrategische und methodologische Zugange sichtbar und ermoglichen die Entwicklung von Perspektiven der Systemsteuerung im Schulwesen.

Steuerung der Entwicklung des Schulwesens

Das einleitende Kapitel des Handbuchs Neue Steuerung im Schulsystem soll den konzeptuellen Rahmen der Governance-Forschung und den Aufbau des Handbuchs erlautern. Zunachst wird erortert, in welchem Verstandnis von „Steuerung“ im Schulsystem jenseits von Machbarkeitsphantasien gesprochen werden kann. Sodann werden zentrale Begriffe der Governance-Perspektive vorgestellt. Im darauf folgenden Abschnitt werden einige Uberlegungen zu Anspruchen und Herausforderungen an die Erforschung schulischer Governance zur Diskussion gestellt. Abschliesend wird das Konzept des Bandes und die Abfolge der Beitrage erlautert.

Theoretische und empirische Analysen der Effektivität von Bildungsstandards, standardbezogenen Lernstandserhebungen und zentralen Abschlussprüfungen

In der Steuerung von Bildungssystemen lasst sich in den letzten Jahren nicht nur in den deutschsprachigen Landern, sondern international, eine klare Trendwende hin zu einer starkeren Fokussierung auf die Uberprufung von Bildungsergebnissen der Schuler/innen mit einer gleichzeitigen Starkung der schulischen Autonomie feststellen (Altrichter & Heinrich 2007; Burkard & Eikenbusch 2002; Fend 2005). Die Entwicklung und Implementation von Bildungsstandards, die Einfuhrung von standardbezogenen Lernstandserhebungen sowie von zentralen Abschlussprufungen sind Kernbereiche dieser Output-Steuerung, deren Einfuhrung mit internationalen Entwicklungen und dem erwartungswidrig schlechten Abschneiden der deutschsprachigen Lander in den internationalen Leistungsvergleichsstudien in einen Zusammenhang gebracht werden kann (Steffens 2007). Zudem verweisen Forschungsbefunde auf die nur geringe Standardsicherung, auf eine hohe Varianz zwischen einzelnen Bundeslandern oder Schulen (Baumert & Watermann 2000; Koller u.a. 2004; Koller, Baumert & Schnabel 1999), auf die uneinheitliche Verwendung von Benotungsmasstaben (Klieme 2003) und auf signifikante Interaktionseffekte zwischen Notengebung und Schulzugehorigkeit (Klieme 2005).

Educational Governance als Forschungsperspektive

In diesem Beitrag wird in die Thematik des Herausgeberbandes eingefuhrt und die einzelnen Beitrage kurz vorgestellt

Reliability and Validity Analyses of a Newly Developed Test to Assess Learning Strategy Knowledge

This study presents a newly developed test to assess students’ knowledge of learning strategies that they use when completing complex assignments at the upper secondary baccalaureate school (Gymnasium) level. The sample included N = 2,300 students at 23 baccalaureate schools in Switzerland and also a small sample of university students (N = 58). We tested hypotheses regarding cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational dimensions of learning. In addition, students’ self-reported grades in German were used as an achievement criterion. The analyses included estimation of Cronbach’s alpha and distribution of the test scores on the individual and class level. Furthermore, structural equation modeling was carried out. The findings support the reliability and validity of the new test. We found significant differences in terms of gender and school attendance. Learning strategy knowledge showed a positive relationship with student achievement, students’ learning motivation, and students’self-reported use of habitual learning strategies.

Statewide low-stakes tests and a teaching to the test effect? An analysis of teacher survey data from two German states

Governments worldwide are changing their educational policies to improve student performance. Some of these reforms involve the introduction of high-stakes testing, which often creates negative effects such as ‘teaching to the test’. This article deals with the use of low-stakes testing in the German states of Hesse and Bremen, and analyses whether statewide low-stakes testing produces comparable results to the use of high-stakes tests from the perspective of teachers. Moreover, it seeks to identify the factors responsible for the observable teaching to the test effect, above and beyond the use of statewide exams. The data come from surveys carried out in the framework of a longitudinal study funded by the German Research Foundation. Hesse and Bremen introduced statewide exit exams in several subjects in 2007 and 2008 as low-stakes tests. Our quasi-experimental study has been evaluating these implementations since 2007.

The willingness of young Swiss to participate in continuing education and training: initial findings from a survey of young adults

This article presents some of the initial results of the National Young Adult Survey (YAS), which is currently collecting data on the cross‐curriculum competencies of 14,905 18‐ to 22‐year‐olds in Switzerland. Young adults show a willingness to continue their education during the first five years after school. Using a regression model, it was found that the willingness of these young people to continue their education and training is dependent on achievement motivation, contingency beliefs, self‐efficacy, cooperation, independence and level of education.

Zentralabitur und Themenvarianz im Unterricht: lohnt sich Teaching to the Test?

In der vorliegenden Studie werden die langfristigen Effekte der Einfuhrung zentraler Abiturprufungen hinsichtlich eines Teaching-to-the-Test-Effektes im Unterricht am Beispiel des Bundeslandes Bremen untersucht.

Conducting intervention studies on school improvement

Purpose – In school improvement studies, randomized experiments are rare. A special problem is the assignment to the experimental and control groups, taking into account the different starting conditions at the schools in terms of school improvement competencies. The purpose of this paper is to take the example of an intervention study conducted in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, the extent to which the challenges involved with a quasi-experimental design were addressed is examined. Design/methodology/approach – The intervention study was conducted with 54 math teachers (experimental group: n=29; control group: n=25) and their grade 7 and 8 classes (n=1,054) at 13 secondary schools. It aimed to increase teacher cooperation on teaching for promotion of students’ self-regulated learning. T-tests, Mann-Whitney tests, ANOVA, multilevel regression analyses were conducted. Findings – At the beginning of the intervention, the teachers in the two groups did not differ significantly in prior cooperation on teaching pr...

Further development of educational effectiveness theory in a multilevel context: from theory to methodology and from empirical evidence back to theory

The analyses in this special issue contribute to the further development of educational effectiveness theory. In the history of educational effectiveness research (Creemers, Kyriakides, & Sammons, 2010c), modeling educational effectiveness theory can be described as a main focus that has gained in importance particularly since the 1990s. Early on, sociological studies by Coleman et al. (1966) and Jencks et al. (1972), which can be seen as the origins of educational effectiveness research (Creemers et al., 2010c; Van Damme et al., 2006), concluded based on their empirical findings that schools are not unimportant, but next to students’ family educational background they make no substantial contribution to explaining the variance in student achievement (“schools do not make any difference”). However, subsequent empirical studies found clear indications of the significance of the school for student development (“schools can make a difference”). These include, for instance, Rutter, Maughan, Mortimore, Ouston, and Smith (1979) in England, Edmonds (1979) and Brookover, Beady, Flood, Schweitzer, and Wisenbaker (1979) in the United States, and Fend (1986) in Germany. These, as well as many later studies, differ from the first studies by Coleman et al. (1966) and Jencks et al. (1972) not only with regard to their methodological design and research methods used but also especially in the theoretical model of school effectiveness or school quality that served as the basis of the empirical analyses. Coleman et al. (1966) and Jencks et al. (1972) started out from a simple “input-output framework” that basically assumes “the potential influence of such school characteristics [e.g., the presence of a library] is additive in relation to the role of the pupil characteristics” (Van Damme et al., 2006, p. 4). Later studies, however, included the school context, school and teaching processes prior to the output, as well as individual background factors (e.g., students’ socioeconomic status [SES], ethnic group, motivation) in their theoretical model. Although previous research led to diverse theoretical and methodological approaches and current theories of educational effectiveness are not identical, they are comparable at least with regard to some important aspects. The following features might belong to the core of educational effectiveness theory (e.g., Creemers et al., 2010c; Reynolds et al., 2014; Teddlie, Reynolds, & Sammons, 2001; Townsend, 2007; Van Damme et al., 2006):