Maria Knobelsdorf, University of Dortmund, Germany - Didaktik der ...

Data in this study are drawn from 11 NSW (state of Australia)
schools between 2005 and 2007. It includes 722 surveys.
The male students present higher levels of home-based
and school-related abilities than the females. Only for male
students there is a direct connection between home-related
confidence in one’s ability and plans to take CIT subjects
(see [5], 193).
Downes and Looker also find out that there are three key
factors which influence plans to take CIT subjects in senior
secondary years: gender, amount of use at school and the
value students place on CIT subjects (see [5], 194). The
latter two factors are inter-related either directly or indirectly
to home use and home- and school-related confidence
in one’s ability. Consequently the authors conclude that
“any school-based interventions that focus on increasing use
of IT at school, and increasing the ’value’ of CIT subjects,
need to also address increasing home use and self-perceived
skill levels in tasks associated with both home and school
use” ([5], 194f).
2.4 Results from ChiK
The project “Chemie im Kontext (short: ChiK)” is introduced
representatively for the context-based projects biology,
chemistry and physics. Contexts are chosen as starting
points and structuring elements of teaching units. These
contexts are either based on the environment of the learner
or are relevant through social references or later vocational
perspectives. The chemistry lessons are planned as practical
training and a means to advance the learners’ development
of competence (see [11] and [13]). Moreover, the
symbiotic implementation strategy is employed (see [10]).
So-called ”learning communities”, consisting of 8 - 12 teachers
from different schools in cooperation with scientists and
representatives of the education administration develop, test
and improve teaching units on the basis of a context-based
approach to teaching and learning chemistry (see [7], 54-
64). The learning communities are named “sets”. Sets 2 are
follow-up projects of sets 1 with low organisational changes.
Two fundamental questions of this research are ([7], 65):
• Do the students perceive changes in the teaching approach?
Do the students of the sets 1- and sets 2teachers
differ from each other in their perception of a
change in teaching approaches? In order to see the
teaching practice from the students’ point of view,
they were asked to describe their chemistry lessons
using four characteristic features of teaching: systematic
teaching of the subject, practical knowledge, crosscurricular
competences and self-controlled learning.
• Do motivation and interest develop equally in students
of sets 1 and sets 2?
The data collection for the sets 1 took place at the beginning
of the school year 2002/2003 (t0) and at the end of the
school years 2002/2003 (t1) and 2003/2004 (t2). The survey
of the sets 2 was carried out at the beginning of the school
year 2003/2004 and at the end of the school years 2003/2004
and 2004/2005. The students had to indicate their level of
agreement or disagreement for a series of statements. The
four-level answer scale ranged from “1” meaning “strongly
disagree” to “4” meaning “strongly agree” (see [7], 66-69).
The following results were obtained:
The students did perceive changes in their chemistry teaching
approach (see table 1). The increased perception of prac-
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tical knowledge and self-controlled learning and at the same
time the reduction of the dominance of systematic learning
leads to the conclusion that students do notice the essential
criteria of the ChiK concept.
The motivation of the ChiK students in the chemistry
lessons shows a declining development in the course of the
second project year (see table 2). In another comparative
study it could be shown that the motivation of the ChiKstudents
declined significantly less than in classes which received
traditional chemistry teaching (see [7], 75). A positive
result is that in the two years under observation there
was no decline of interest (see table 2), whereas other scientific
studies reviewing subjects like physics or biology show
a continuous decline in interest from grade 5 to grade 9 (see
[22], 367). The development concerning sustainable interest
is not significant. Fussangel et al. describe the results in
([7], 72-76).
2.5 Summary of important results
The studies discussed show that vocational orientation
must be seen as an interplay of a lot of factors also influenced
by gender. Among other things interests and the selfconcept
play a crucial role. Todt, who analyzes the importance
of school for the development of childrens’ interests,
also maintains that interests tend to be an important condition
for the choice of profession or of academic study (see
[22], 373). Structures of interest are also closely connected
to children’s general estimations and orientations. Specific
and general interests are integrated into the individual selfconcept,
especially towards the end of adolescence, i.e. the
end of school education. There are a lot of indications, however,
that interests can develop during the whole span of
life, provided they do not contradict the self-image and the
activities involved can be mastered and lead to some satisfaction
(see [22], 375). Certain conditions of teaching practices
noticed by the students can influence the students’ characteristics
”self-determined motivation” and ”interest”. These
characteristics are interrelated with each other. On the basis
of our research project InTech the teaching characteristics
student- and context-orientation as well as the student
characteristics interest, self-concept of ability in Informatics
and vocational orientation will be explored. In the following
chapters we give an overview of the history and the organisation
of our experiment, the evaluating research and finally
the first results.
3. THE INTECH EXPERIMENT
3.1 Description of part I
For three school years, from 2005 to 2008, six secondary
schools in Lower Saxony, Germany, tested ways of teaching
Informatics in grades 7 to 9. Lessons in participating
classes were held according to “Time Schedule I”, which allocated
three hours per week in grade 7 and four hours in
grades 8 and 9. Different organisational concepts and teaching
units were developed, e.g. some schools cooperated with
the subjects of arts and economy and others cooperated with
astronomy or physics. All participating teachers met at regular
intervals to exchange experiences, at least 4 times a
year. Due to the fact that all schools decided to use robots
in their classes and most schools in Germany cannot afford
to buy 8 or more sets of robots at the same time, the project
was sponsored by the “Stiftung NiedersachsenMetall”.