Analytical Competence of Teachers - Diagnosis and Development (Continuation Project)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Wilfried Plöger
• Subject Area: General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 264967385

This research project is based on previous studies on the analytical competence of teachers and trainee teachers. The term analytical competence refers to the ability to analyse ones own as well as someone elses lessons in terms of learning effectiveness. In the context of these investigations, a measuring tool was designed and tested on a larger sample of study participants (N = 800). The item scale proved to be homogeneous to the Rasch model. Moreover, the fit-values, which have been generated by means of confirmatory factor analyses, showed that analytical competence is determined by the content-related and formal quality of the underlying knowledge and can be thus understood as a two-dimensional construct. Building up on these results, this continuation project has two main objectives. (1) In addition to the confirmatory factor analyses, two validation trials will be conducted in order to gain further evidence of the validity of the construct. One of these trials will be realised by a quantitatively oriented four-groups-design, whereas the other trial will be realised by a qualitative content analysis of interviews conducted with experts and novices. (2) The second question aims at the development of analytical competence in teacher traineeship, which will be determined by means of a longitudinal study of three time points and illustrated via Latent-Growth-Curve-models. The implementation of this study is to provide information about whether the observed high performance in the first study (established by a cross-sectional design of teacher trainees in comparison to students) can be attributed to the development in teacher traineeship. Further more, the question, whether there are also differences in the individual developments beyond the average trend and which parameters could have an impact, will be addressed.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Daniel Scholl
• Cooperation Partner: Dr. Andreas Seifert