Susan Seeber

Basic Competencies as Determinants of Success in Commercial Apprenticeships

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the structural relationships between basic academic competencies as acquired in German secondary schools and the achievement levels attained in the specific learning contexts of apprenticeships in the commercial sector.

Untersuchungen zum mathematischen und mathematikdidaktischen Wissen angehender GHR- und Gymnasiallehrkräfte

ZusammenfassungDie international-vergleichenden Studie zur Leistungsfähigkeit der Lehrerausbildung „Mathematics Teaching in the 21st Century” (MT21) zeigt für die deutsche Stichprobe auf, dass das mathematische und mathematikdidaktische Wissen angehender Mathematiklehrkräfte für das Gymnasium im Mittel deutlich umfangreicher ist als das angehender Lehrkräfte für Grund-, Haupt- und Realschulen. Nichtsdestotrotz werden einige Items von der Gruppe angehender deutscher Lehrkräfte für Grund-, Haupt- und Realschulen relativ häufiger gelöst als von der Gruppe der angehenden Gymnasiallehrkräfte, andere fallen ihnen in Relation zu den übrigen Items des Itempools deutlich leichter. Umgekehrt lassen sich Items finden, bei denen der Leistungsvorsprung angehender Gymnasiallehrkräfte besonders groß ist. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird untersucht, was die beiden Item-Sets auszeichnet, die entsprechende differenzielle Itemfunktionen aufweisen. Auf diese Weise kann das besondere Leistungspotenzial sowohl angehender angehender Lehrkräfte für Grund-, Haupt- und Realschulen als auch angehender Gymnasiallehrkräfte herausgearbeitet werden.AbstractResults of the study „Mathematics Teaching in the 21st Century” (MT21), a comparative study on teacher education across six countries, showed for the German sample that future high-school teachers on average developed higher knowledge than future primary and lower-secondary teachers. However, the latter performed relatively well on some items, other items were less difficult for them in relation to the whole item-pool. In contrast, there were items on which future high-school teachers achieved test scores way above the average difference. In this paper, we analyze the two sets of items that showed differential item functioning in order to work out the specific strengths of future primary and lower-secondary teachers as well as of future high-school teachers.

Gesellschaftliche Bezüge der Fachdidaktik Wirtschaft und Technik im Spiegel programmatischer Vorstellungen und empirischer Forschung

Programmatisch werden in der Wirtschafts- und Technikdidaktik in der Regel Zielperspektiven praferiert, die nicht nur auf die Entwicklung von Handlungskompetenzen in den mehr oder weniger eng umrissenen okonomischen und technischen Handlungsfeldern gerichtet sind, sondern zumindest die Reflexion oder auch die Befahigung zur Mitgestaltung dieser Handlungsfelder unter Berucksichtigung ihrer gesellschaftlichen Implikationen einschliesen. Rein am empirischen Paradigma ausgerichtete didaktische Modellvorstellungen sind in diesen Feldern eher die Ausnahme. Zu den bildungstheoretischen und didaktischen Konzeptionen gibt es zahlreiche Diskurse, in welchen der Versuch unternommen wurde, Aussagesysteme bereit zu stellen, die fur die Begrundung und Ausgestaltung von Lehr-Lernprozessen in diesen Feldern handlungsleitend sein konnten.

Probleme einer evidenzbasierten Förderung der Integration von Zuwanderern

Der Beitrag beleuchtet Fragen einer evidenzbasierten Forderung der Integration von zugewanderten Personengruppen, wobei insbesondere die Zuwanderungsgruppen der letzten Jahre unter ausgewahlten Aspekten gesellschaftlicher Teilhabe sowie deren Voraussetzungen in den Blick genommen werden. Die Forderung der sozialen und politischen Enkulturation neu Ankommender wird vor dem Hintergrund dieser jungsten Migrationsstrome ebenso wie die Herstellung der gewunschten „Willkommenskultur“ unter den bereits Ansassigen als eine zentrale Aufgabe der Politischen Bildung erortert und ein daraus folgender Forschungsbedarf fur eine empirisch fundierte, „evidenzbasierte“ Theorie der Politischen Bildung skizziert. „Partizipation“ wird in diesem Zusammenhang als Schlusselbegriff nicht nur fur die politische Bildung im engeren Sinne verstanden, sondern auch zentrales Element fur die Legitimation von Bildungsbemuhungen jeglicher Art.

Martin Baethge Obituary

© The Author(s) 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Martin Baethge, Professor of Sociology at the University of Göttingen and until recently an active member of the editorial committee, passed away quite unexpectedly after a short illness on 4 January 2018 at the age of 78. As a researcher and teacher, Martin Baethge significantly shaped the profile of sociology at Göttingen for almost five decades. He studied sociology, pedagogy, philosophy, and politics at the University of Göttingen and the Free University of Berlin. With his dissertation ‘Economic interests and education policy. A contribution to economic and educational sociology concerning the relationship of economic interests and education policy, as illustrated by the example of the education policy-related activities of enterpreneurial umbrella organisations’, Martin Baethge came to the University of Göttingen during the heated disputes of the 1960s; in 1969, he was awarded his doctorate for this publication in Hanover. The title of his dissertation alone makes it clear that it paved the way for Martin Baethge’s future research: He was always concerned with the perspectives of working people, democratisation processes, shaping and steering policies, organised work that shapes occupations, and vocational training. He was always scrutinising working conditions, criticising claims to power and the hegemony of economically powerful players, and demanded participation opportunities for everyone. The focus of his attention were the ‘losers’ of social modernisation processes; young people and adults who had difficulty accessing socially valuable commodities, such as finding vocational training, further education, and gainful employment. In 1973, he was appointed as professor of sociology at the University of Göttingen, a post he held until 2004. Martin Baethge confronted the world of work and vocational training in many different publications. He criticised the persistence of social institutions in the structures and regulation mechanisms of a classically industrial society; he called for reforms, mainly with respect to vocational training based on a traditional industrial model; and he urged people to challenge their positions. His work was always shaped by conceptual clarity, analytic astuteness, and pointed messages. One of Martin Baethge’s works from 1978, ‘Training problems for young people and problems young people have starting’, was a topic that was to shape his sociological research for years to come. In the last two decades, these works were firmly anchored in national educational reporting, where he made his voice heard regarding issues concerning unequal opportunities when transitioning to training; he also called for missing system perspectives in the transition structures, and while doing so, he did not shy away from political confrontation. Martin Baethge contributed to educational reporting from the outset, helping to shape both the concept and the content. His final works focussed increasingly on growing integration problems within vocational training, problems concerning the professional integration of immigrants, the shift of coordinates in the vocational training system, and the associated new challenges in steering vocational training. He was always an active, stimulating, and politically-minded partner, both here and in related projects that dealt with outcome and steering issues within vocational training. Apart from vocational training issues—the general common theme of his works—Martin Baethge mainly addressed the radical changes to industrial work caused by technological reforms and linked his analyses on operational rationalisation processes to the demand for social reform prospects, which always included a more social working world. For him, science was also always connected to discovering problem areas and pointing out action perspectives. Publications such as ‘The Future of Employees’ (1986) and ‘Goodbye to Industrialism’ (2006) were widely recognised beyond sociology. Looking at digitalisation processes in society and the working world, he developed new ideas for researching and shaping service work in a world of digital change with unwavering energy, even in the last few months of his work. In parallel to these heavily theoretical issues, he also tried to introduce solutions to political and practical problems, where he also addressed key international Open Access Journal for Labour Market Research

Social Competence Research: A Review

A large body of research on social competence or social skills exists in psychology, educational sciences and human resource management. In professional contexts, social competencies are mostly seen as general abilities, independent of specific workplace requirements. But in the case of vocational education and training, it is necessary to define social competence as a personal capacity which also allows acting in accordance with learning and workplace requirements. The issue of specificity versus generality of social competence still needs to be clarified. A related question pertains to the dimensionality of social competence, be it specifically related to a particular domain or relevant across domains. This has obvious methodological implications for the measurement of social competence as well as for training programmes. This chapter starts out by a discussion of different approaches to define social competencies and their implications for the problems of generality and dimensionality of social competence related to vocational and professional domains. Subsequently, measurement issues will be debated including the different methodological underpinnings for measuring social competence. The state of the art of modelling domains and competencies in these fields is then discussed, distinguishing between, among others, sales and services and social and health-care occupations. Research findings as to the structure, background, training and effects of social competence in vocational and professional domains will be critically reviewed. Finally, perspectives for future research will be identified.

Assessing the Return on Investments in Human Resource Development

Current studies attest that companies are increasingly investing in the in-company further education of their staff. A substantial reason for this trend is the positive economic effect regarding the company’s success which these investments in further education are intended to accomplish. Education controlling is the specific part of HRM which deals with the checking of training measures as well as its success, utility and effectiveness via the sub-function that is the evaluation. Against this background the article concerns itself with outcome evaluation, which assesses the success of further education measures from an economic perspective. Until now there have been very few theoretical approaches, concepts and models with which one can determine the cost effectiveness of training investments. Business controlling uses economic key performance indicators (KPI) to verify the utility of investments made by the business. One of the most significant KPIs is return on investment (ROI). As the discussion of utility verification of in-company further education measures, especially in regard to the calculation of the ROI on educational investments and the need to establish what deficits exist in the theoretical and empirical foundations of education controlling, in the relevant subject literature has been controversial, this article will address the question how the economic effects of in-company training measures can be determined from a theoretical perspective. To this end, an overview of the current state of research regarding education controlling and especially the return on investment of in-company training measures will be given.

The Impact of International Large-Scale Assessments on Work-related Educational Monitoring and Policy-making in Germany

Germany has relied on its well-established tradition of preparing the workforce through the so-called dual system of practical in-firm training (apprenticeships) and theoretical foundations conveyed by vocational schools. Believing in the high quality of academic school programmes that prepare a small elite for university studies, the German public remained convinced until well into the 1990s that there was little need for innovation and improvement in German education. Although there had been earlier signs of concern, this conviction remained unchanged until the publication of the outcomes of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 1996. The ‘TIMSS shock’, reinforced by later studies, has resulted in a host of changes in educational policy, perhaps best characterised by the late Hermann Lange as the ‘turn towards evidence-based educational policy making’. Hallmarks of this trend were the decision by all 16 federal states in Germany to participate regularly in international large-scale assessments (ILSAs), including interstate comparisons (taken in 1997); the decision to define standards of educational performance (corresponding to the federally recognised school leaving certificates); the initiation of academic study programmes intended to foster the development of the required advanced technical skills; and the founding and/or expansion of agencies for quality management (including systems of reports on the state of education, both at the federal and the state levels). In this article, the role of ILSAs (including both IEA and others) in these policy changes are described and examined from a critical perspective.