Summary of dissertation project Measuring chemistry-related competences at the transition from primary to lower secondary education

The transition from general science teaching in primary school to lower secondary chemistry teaching is notable for the fundamental differences between these two subjects (Pollmeier, Walper, Lange, Kleickmann & Möller, 2014). In primary school, chemistry content is tackled within the framework of a natural sciences perspective integrated into general teaching, while at lower secondary level it can be found as an individual discipline in chemistry teaching or within integrated science teaching (Möller, 2014). After the end of the four years of primary school with its Sachunterricht general education, in North Rhine-Westphalia the specialist subject of chemistry in secondary school usually starts at the beginning of 7^th grade at the earliest. Prior to this, the subjects of biology and physics are often taught in 5^th and 6^th grades, meaning chemistry content does not appear at all for these age groups. At German Gesamtschulen (comprehensive schools), however, integrated science lessons can be taught at these grades instead, which also include chemistry content (MSW NRW, 2013), so the transition phase can be structured in two ways. In both cases, the transition phase between the Sachunterricht and chemistry covers a time period of at least two years.

Despite the differences between the Sachunterricht general education and chemistry and the long and variably structured transition phase between them, new chemistry content should be introduced efficiently into the learners’ existing knowledge network for the purposes of cumulative learning (Fischer, Glemnitz, Kauertz & Sumfleth, 2007). This cumulative learning is the goal not only in the subject of chemistry itself, but also beyond the boundaries of school levels and subjects. The knowledge already acquired through the Sachunterricht teaching should be linked to the new school requirements in the subject of chemistry in order to avoid separate storage of knowledge and the gaps in knowledge development that result from this (Hempel, 2010). If we consider the curricula for Sachunterricht and chemistry in North Rhine-Westphalia, we find competence formulations for both primary and lower secondary level relating to the content of “combustion”, “states of matter”, “material properties”, “solution processes” and “energy” (MSW NRW, 2013; 2008). On the curricular level, therefore, there appear to be favourable conditions for the intended cumulative learning process. Nevertheless, the results of various school performance studies indicate that not all pupils successfully manage the transition phase between the science of the Sachunterricht and the related individual science disciplines, such as chemistry, in terms of competence development. In the 2015 TIMS study, for example, 78.4 % of 4^th-graders in Germany achieved a medium to high competence level in natural sciences (Bos, Wendt, Köller, Selter, Schwippert & Kasper, 2016), while in the 2015 PISA study only 60.3 % of 15-year-olds in Germany achieved a comparable competence level in natural sciences (OECD, 2016). Similar results emerged from the IQB-Bildungstrend for the subject of chemistry in 2018. There, 56.1 % of the pupils in Germany achieved the standard in the competence area of subject knowledge and 63.6 % in the competence area of knowledge acquisition, whereas in North Rhine-Westphalia it was as low as 50.4 % in the competence area of subject knowledge and 60.0 % in the competence area of knowledge acquisition (Weirich, Becker & Holtmann, 2019).

The results described from the various school performance studies each give an overview of the competence level among students in science or in the subject of chemistry in general before or after the transition phase between Sachunterricht and chemistry. However, little research has been done thus far on which of the expected chemistry-related competences students possess at the end of primary school and at various points during and immediately after this two-year transition phase to chemistry instruction. This is where this doctoral project comes in.

To measure the chemistry-related competences of pupils in the transition phase, a pencil-and-paper test with multiple-choice items was developed in preparatory work, which focuses on subject knowledge. This was trialled in the 4^th grade and analysed for statistical quality characteristics with the help of IRT analyses. The test was then developed further and supplemented with items on process-related competences. The allocation of the developed items to the various competence areas of the subject of chemistry was checked with the help of expert ratings. The resulting test instrument was initially piloted in grades four to eight. With the help of IRT analyses, the quality of the further developed test instrument was tested again. Following further optimisations, it was used in the main study to record the competences of the students in grades five to eight. The goal of the doctoral project is to describe the chemistry-related competences of pupils at different points during and immediately after the transition phase between the Sachunterricht and the chemistry teaching. Here, schools with and without integrated science teaching at grades five and six could be compared with one another.

Literature:

Bos, W., Wendt, H., Köller, O., Selter, C., Schwippert, K. & Kasper, D. (2016). TIMSS 2015: Wichtige Ergebnisse im Überblick. In H. Wendt, W. Bos, C. Selter, O. Köller, K. Schwippert & D. Kasper (eds.), TIMSS 2015. Mathematische und naturwissenschaftliche Kompetenzen von Grundschulkindern in Deutschland im internationalen Vergleich (p. 13–29). Münster: Waxmann Verlag.

Fischer, H. E., Glemnitz, I., Kauertz, A. & Sumfleth, E. (2007). Auf Wissen aufbauen – kumulatives Lernen in Chemie und Physik. In E. Kircher, R. Girwidz & P. Häußler (eds.), Physikdidaktik. Theorie und Praxis (p. 657– 678). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Hempel, M. (2010). Zur Anschlussfähigkeit der Sachfächer an den Sachunterricht – eine Erkundungsstudie. In H. Giest & D. Pech (eds.), Anschlussfähige Bildung im Sachunterricht (Probleme und Perspektiven des Sachunterrichts, vol. 20) (p. 75–82). Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt.

Ministry of Schools and Further Education of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. (2008). Lehrplan Sachunterricht für die Grundschulen des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen. Frechen: Ritterbach.

Ministry of Schools and Further Education of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. (2013). Kernlehrplan für die Gesamtschule – Sekundarstufe I in Nordrhein-Westfalen. Naturwissenschaften. Biologie, Chemie, Physik. 2^nd edition. Frechen: Ritterbach.

Möller, K. (2014). Vom naturwissenschaftlichen Sachunterricht zum Fachunterricht – Der Übergang von der Grundschule in die weiterführende Schule. Zeitschrift für Didaktik der Naturwissenschaften (20), 33–43.

Pollmeier, K., Walper, L. M., Lange, K., Kleickmann, T. & Möller, K. (2014). Vom Sachunterricht zum Fachunterricht – Physikbezogener Unterricht und Interessen im Übergang von der Primar- zur Sekundarstufe. Zeitschrift für Grundschulforschung, 7 (2), 129–145.

OECD (2016). PISA 2015 Results (Volume I): Excellence and Equity in Education. OECD. PISA. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264267879-de

Weirich, S., Becker, B. & Holtmann, M. (2019). Kompetenzstufenbesetzungen in den naturwissenschaftlichen Fächern. In P. Stanat, S. Schipolowski, N. Mahler, S. Weirich & S. Henschel (eds.), IQB-Bildungstrend 2018. Mathematische und naturwissenschaftliche Kompetenzen am Ende der Sekundarstufe I im zweiten Ländervergleich (p. 169–199). Münster: Waxmann.