Prioritised Goals for Pedagogical Staff

It should be emphasised that no research has been conducted to date on the tar-geted competencies of the specific group of educators who are the subject of the present report (i.e., pedagogical staff at after-school centres and in extracurric-ular afternoon programmes at primary schools). Hence, the presentation of the state of research draws mainly on research on primary teachers, who, however, differ fundamentally from the aforementioned pedagogical staff by reason of their education and training alone. We therefore recommend broad-based studies of the domain-specific professional knowledge of these educators and of the other competence facets. These studies should precede the actual evaluation research.

4.2.1 Motivation, Interest, and Self-Efficacy

As explained in Section 3.1, the following goal dimensions are recommended:

■ emotional attitude to, and interest in, science

■ enthusiasm about the facilitation of science learning processes

■ perceived self-efficacy with regard to the facilitation of science learning pro-cesses

The current state of research on teachers suggests that those competencies that directly relate to pedagogical interactions (in this case, enthusiasm and perceived self-efficacy) also have a greater (because direct) influence on the quality of ped-agogical interactions. Accordingly, it can be assumed that they are more strongly

associated with child develop-ment.

Measurement: With regard to the motivational and emo-tional aspects described above, it should be noted that, in some cases, there are instruments that measure these aspects in prima-ry teachers. However, for accom-panying research on the Founda-tion, these instruments would have to be specifically adapted for administration to

pedagogi-cal staff at after-school centres and in extracurricular afternoon programmes at primary schools.

4.2.2 Epistemological Beliefs and Attitudes

As outlined in Section 3.2, the following goal dimensions are recommended:

■ conceptual beliefs about the nature of science

■ epistemological beliefs about the acquisition of science competencies

■ beliefs about the importance and content of science education at after-school centres and primary schools

Measurement: Several studies have investigated the aspects described above, also in the German-speaking area (Brickhouse, 1990; Dubberke et al., 2008;

Staub & Stern, 2002; Kleickmann, 2008; Strunck et al, 1999; Möller, 2004). How-ever, the corresponding – often questionnaire-based – instruments would have to be adapted to the specific content and educational goals of the “Haus der kleinen Forscher” Foundation.

4.2.3 Domain-Specific Professional Knowledge

In line with the findings of research on the teaching profession, content knowledge and, in particular, pedagogical content knowledge are assumed to be important for the design and implementation of effective teaching-learning situations (see Section 3.3). Content knowledge is understood here as conceptual knowledge that includes (a) knowledge of core concepts and of the structure of the domain, and (b) an in-depth knowledge of primary-school-relevant content areas at lower secondary level. This knowledge includes knowledge of relationships that are not

directly visible; it uses evidence-based explanations to explain the regularity of phenomena. Hence, it also includes more complex knowledge and explanations, for example particle models. We recommend the following goal dimensions:

■ knowledge of scientific core concepts

■ in-depth knowledge of selected science content

Measurement: As there are only a few instruments with which primary school teachers’ science content knowledge can be measured (Ohle, 2010), an obvious solution would be to additionally adapt or use student performance tests that are geared towards core concepts, and with which corresponding primary school top-ics can be measured.

Besides science content knowledge, we also consider knowledge about sci-ence to be a relevant component of professional knowledge. Knowledge about science refers to methodological competencies, on the one hand, and to an under-standing of the nature of science, on the other. On the basis of research approach-es adopted within the framework of the Science-P project, we assume methodo-logical knowledge that includes the evidence-based justification of assumptions in the form of controlled experiments and appropriate forms of representation. We recommend the following goal dimensions:

■ advanced methodological competence

■ advanced understanding of the nature of science

Measurement: Instruments for measuring the understanding of the nature of sci-ence include, for example, the Student Understanding of Scisci-ence and Scientific In-quiry scale (SUSSI; Liang et al., 2006) and the instruments for measuring pedagog-ical content knowledge aspects of methodologpedagog-ical knowledge in teachers, which were developed and tested within the framework of the Science-P project. In the do-main of methodological competence, an instrument that was developed by Lawson et al. (1978; 2000) for research with secondary school students could be adapted.

We differentiated pedagogical content knowledge into two facets:

■ knowledge of instructional strategies

■ knowledge of student cognitions

(See Baumert et al., 2010; Magnusson, Krajcik, & Borko, 1999; Park & Oliver, 2008; Gess-Newsome, 2015.)

Measurement: There are a few instruments in selected content areas that could be used. They include, for example, instruments from the PLUS and ViU projects.

Moreover, further topic-specific tests could be developed in the style of these in-struments. Tests for the assessment of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge in the context of science teaching are described, for example, in McConnell, Park-er, & Eberhardt (2013); SadlPark-er, Coyle, et al. (2013); Roth et al. (2011); Vogelsang &

Reinhold (2013); Lange et al., 2012; and Meschede, Fiebranz, Möller, & Steffensky (in press).

Based on the assumption that the extracurricular offerings for after-school centres and extra-curricular afternoon programmes at primary schools that are provided by the “Haus der kleinen Forscher” initiative are oriented towards sci-ence-related Sachunterricht, we suggest as a further relevant facet of pedagogical content knowledge

■ knowledge of school-based learning.

Subsumed under this term is knowledge of primary school curricula and typical primary school topics and implementations.

Measurement: To measure this facet, it would be necessary to develop a spe-cific new instrument from scratch.

Besides the measurement of these knowledge components, instruments that measure

■ ability to design and implement effective learning environments and interac-tions

could possibly be used for the evaluation of the programme. This component relates to the process quality of the learning situation, such as the interactions between teacher and learner, and the effectiveness of the designed learning en-vironment.

Measurement: There are corresponding rating instruments, for example, for measuring the quantity and quality of specific pedagogic interactions (sustained shared thinking: Siraj-Blatchford et al., 2003; Siraj, Kingston, & Melhuish, 2015;

Hopf, 2011; see also instruments from classroom research, e.g., Rakoczy & Pauli, 2006; Kobarg & Seidel, 2003; Kunter, 2005).

4.2.4 General Aspects of Professional Role Perception and Self-Concept As explained in Section 3.4, we recommend the following goal dimensions:

■ reflective ability

■ collaborative ability

■ development of professionalism

Collaborative ability can be regarded as a particularly relevant dimension in the context of the “Haus der kleinen Forscher” Foundation.

Measurement: There is a great need to develop instruments for measuring the general aspects of professional role perception and self-concept. The exist-ing studies on education professionals’ role perceptions and self-concepts do not refer to the specific structure of the “Haus der kleinen Forscher” initiative.

Moreover, the development and implementation of a reliable and valid measure of these dimensions would appear to be so time-consuming that it would hardly be suitable for use in more large-scale accompanying research.