Manuela Welzel

Do interviews really assess students’ knowledge?

Interviews are important assessment means. Most studies assume that interviews can be used to assess a conceptual framework that remains relatively stable in the interview situation. We provide evidence here that questions this assumption. Using a situated cognition framework, we reanalysed pre‐test and post‐test interviews from a large classroom study. Our analyses show that cognition, rather than being a stable property of individuals, is a dynamic process which changes in different ways over shorter and longer time scales. We also observed considerable interactions between the complexity of the questions asked by the interviewer and the complexity of cognitive processes that interviewees enacted. Finally, our analysis reveals moments of breakdown when interviewers’ and interviewees’ expectations of the situation were mismatched. Implications are drawn for organizing interviews intended to elicit information about cognition.

Individual Learning Processes: A Research Programme with Focus on the Complexity of Situated Cognition

With the following paper a consequent constructivist theoretical framework is used to describe individual learning processes as development of situated cognition in terms of complexity. The results of the reported investigations are based on a variety of empirical data analysed in great detail. Rules about the dynamic character of cognitive development within learning situations are abstracted. Hypotheses for a description of cognition without using any approach of symbolic representation are formulated.

The emergence of complex cognition during a unit on static electricity

This paper takes a situated cognition perspective on learning and cognitive development. According to situated cognition, knowledge is ultimately grounded in each individuals actions with the material and the social world. On the basis of this and other empirical investigations done in the Institute of Physics Education (IPE), a detailed framework that includes operationalizations for levels of situated learning is developed. This framework allows a quantification of certain aspects of the development of situated cognition in terms of complexity. A case study is provided describing the dynamics of individual processes of situated cognition development in the domain of electricity. The case study (a) provides a detail description of individual processes of cognitive development during learning electrostatics on different time‐scales, (b) describes general rules about the dynamic of individual cognitive processes and (c) portrays the influence of interactions on these processes.

A Beginners’ Module of Integrated Natural Science for Secondary Teacher Students: The result of an Educational Reconstruction Process over Three Iterations

In Central Switzerland, pre-service teacher education is intended to reflect the integrated concept of science education in school. The project presented in this chapter assists the development of a research-based unit on integrated science for first-year students. The theoretical background underpinning the research process is provided by the model of educational reconstruction adapted to the settings of universities. The result of this process reflects three important aspects of educational reconstruction: content, concepts and methods. On the level of content, it provides ten suitable topics, which successfully integrate human biology and physics. On the level of concept, it reveals a characteristic self-concept of the involved students and also stimulated conceptual change in questions of integrated science education. On the level of methods, the concept of ’Unterrichtsminiaturen’ evolves into the new concept of educational miniatures, a method that proves to be especially effective in the pre-service education training of science teachers

Nutzung Neuer Medien im Bereich des naturwissenschaftlichen Unterrichtes der Realschule. Eine Studie unter Genderperspektive

Die Ergebnisse der internationalen Studie zur mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Bildung TIMSS und der PISA-Studie zeigen, dass es im Bereich der naturwissenschaftlichen Grundbildung in Deutschland erhebliche geschlechtsspezifische Leistungs- und Einstellungsunterschiede bei Schulerinnen und Schulern gibt (vgl. Baumert et al. 2002; 1997, Jungwirth 1998). Am deutlichsten treten diese Unterschiede im Fach Physik zu Tage. Madchen zeigen hier im Vergleich zu den Jungen signifikant geringere Leistungen. Allerdings fallen diese Unterschiede in der PISA-Studie geringer aus als bei der TIMS-Studie. Dies lasst sich durch die verschiedenen Schwerpunkte der Testaufgaben beider Studien erklaren. Wahrend bei TIMSS die Testaufgaben „das Verstandnis zentraler in den Jahrgangsstufen 7 und 8 unterrichteter Konzepte“(Baumert et al. 1997) erfassen, zielt die PISA-Studie mehr auf die Fahigkeit, „naturwissenschaftliches Wissen anzuwenden, naturwissenschaftliche Fragen zu erkennen und aus Belegen Schlussfolgerungen zu ziehen“(Baumert et al. 2002: 35). Dass diese Leistungsunterschiede zwischen Madchen und Jungen reduziert bzw. aufgehoben werden konnen, zeigen die PISA-Testergebnisse anderer Lander. Nur in einem knappen Funftel der untersuchten Lander zeigen sich Geschlechterunterschiede in der naturwissenschaftlichen Grundbildung. Auserdem finden sich Lander, in denen Madchen im Vergleich zu Jungen bessere Ergebnisse erzielen (vgl. Frank 2002, Prenzel 2002).