Laura Ohrndorf

Competence model for informatics modelling and system comprehension

In this paper we describe the full competence model for informatics modeling and system comprehension that has been developed by a team of researchers in the fields of computer science education, didactics of informatics and psychology. The article presents the development process of the competence model and the corresponding measurement instrument and gives a detailed overview of each of the five competence dimensions.

Pedagogical content knowledge for computer science in German teacher education curricula

In the framework of a cooperation project that aims to identify the competencies required for teaching computer science in schools, we are developing a conceptualization of PCK currently. Up to now, we have derived a category system from literature and evaluated several interviews with teaching persons. In this paper, we describe the category system and the most important steps of its derivation. Further, we present the results of a survey that had investigated all curricula for CS teacher education that we had found in Germany, looking for the implementation of those categories. Furthermore, we are preparing interviews among experts about PCK, applying the Critical Incident Technique.

Developing a competency model for teaching computer science in schools

This poster presents the methodology and the first results of the KUI-Project that aims to develop a competency model for teaching CS in schools. By means of qualitative content analysis we are developing a structured model for this purpose. We present first results of the investigation of German curricula for teacher education.

Towards a Competency Model for Teaching Computer Science

To address the special challenges of teaching computer science, adequate development of teachers’ competencies during their education is extremely important. In particular, pedagogical content knowledge and teachers’ beliefs and motivational orientations play an important role in effective teaching. This research field has been sparsely investigated up to now and there exists no consistent competency model for teaching computer science in Germany. Therefore, this paper describes the development of competency in the areas of pedagogical content knowledge, teachers’ beliefs, and motivational orientations with regard to computer science. Competency-relevant factors for teaching computer science are theoretically derived and concretely formulated with the help of expert interviews conducted according to the critical incident technique and analyzed using techniques of qualitative content analysis.

Development of a competency model for computer science teachers at secondary school level

In order to identify important competencies required for teaching computer science in schools, the research project KUI (Competencies for Teaching Computer Science) granted by the Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) was founded. At this point in time, there is no consistent competency model for training computer science pre-service teachers in Germany. The development of an adequate model is an important step to establish outcome-oriented guidelines and curricula recommendations. The first framework of a competency model is structured into the dimensions of subject matter knowledge (CK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and non-cognitive competencies (NCC). This article concentrates on the development of the PCK and NCC competency model. It describes our methodological approach, our results of expert interviews to refine the model, and shows an overview of the first competency definitions.

Undergraduate teaching assistants in computer science: Teaching-related beliefs, tasks, and competences

We report on the first steps of KETTI, a project that aims towards the development of a competence model for undergraduate teaching assistants (UTAs) in computer science. Using qualitative methods, we obtained a classification of existing designs for teaching that employ UTAs; some of the observed factors directly influence the methodological decision space of UTAs. We developed and implemented a UTA training scheme designed to foster student-oriented teaching in recitation sessions along with an instrument to gauge the effects of this instruction on a variety of psychometric scales. We report results from a small-scale pilot study at three institutions showing positive effects on teaching-related beliefs and self-efficacy.

Measuring Student Competences in German Upper Secondary Computer Science Education

Within the interdisciplinary research project “Measurement Procedure for Informatics in Secondary Education (MoKoM)”, conducted at the Universities of Paderborn and Siegen with help from Peter Hubwieser, Technical University of Munich, researchers aimed to develop a theoretically and empirically sound competence model for the domains of system comprehension and system modelling, alongside an evaluated measurement instrument to assess competences of students in upper secondary computer science education in German schools. The competence model was thoroughly developed by conducting several theoretical and empirical steps. Based on the model measurement items were constructed and compiled into an instrument with 87 items of varying complexity. The instrument was divided into six booklets and distributed to over 800 computer science students in three German states. The returned 583 tests were analysed by means of the multidimensional item response theory, to assess the item difficulty on the one hand and the student abilities on the other. The results are used in several ways: to evaluate the competence model, to revise the measurement instrument and to define proficiency levels in a competence level model by using the method of scale anchoring.

Defining Proficiency Levels of High School Students in Computer Science by an Empirical Task Analysis Results of the MoKoM Project

In the last few years an interdisciplinary team of researchers in the fields of organizational psychology and didactics of informatics have worked together to develop an empirical sound competence structure model, a measurement instrument and a competence level model. This is considered a relevant step for the reliable assessment of competences and the development of competence based curricula to foster the recent outcome orientation of the German educational system.