Issue: Development and validation of a instrument for communication competence

The study is based on the German National Educational Standards for the science subjects (KMK, 2005).

These standards are evaluated and enhanced by the Institute for Educational Progress (IQB) in cooperation with Institutes for Science education at different universities in the project Evaluation of the National Educational Standards for Natural Sciences at the Lower Secondary Level (ESNaS) (Walpuski et al., 2010).
In addition to application of content knowledge, acquirement of knowledge and evaluation and judgement, the communication competence represents one area of competence.

The first aim of this study is to adapt the competence model, which has been used for the areas application of content knowledge, acquirement of knowledge and evaluation and judgement in ESNaS for communication in the subject chemistry.

The second aim is to identify in which way on the one hand the competencies communication and application of content knowledge and on the other hand the competencies communication and evaluation and judgement are empirically connected. The first connection is expected, because reproduction of information and reproduction of content knowledge can also theoretically only hardly be separated. The latter connection between communication and evaluation and judgement is expected, because aspects of the ability to argue are mentioned in the standards for both areas of competence.

For this reason different paper-pencil test items – consistent with the model – will be developed and tested with other paper-pencil competence test instruments and validation instruments. The whole sample includes 540 students from different schooltypes.

Termtime

• 2010-2013

Funding

• DFG

Supervisors

• Maik Walpuski & Elke Sumfleth

Dissertation

• Iwen Kobow