COACTIV

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In the main COACTIV study, the mathematics teachers in the PISA classes 2003/04 were questioned and tested. A central component of COACTIV are the tests for subject-related didactic knowledge and the specialist knowledge of mathematics teachers at secondary level.

The study makes a widely received contribution to teacher knowledge in mathematics and has had an impact on teacher training .

Surname

COACTIV is an acronym that stands for the project " Co gnitive Activ ation in the Classroom: The Orchestration of Learning Opportunities for the Enhancement of Insightful Learning in Mathematics ". The German title is “ Professional knowledge of teachers, cognitively activating mathematics lessons and the development of mathematical competence ”.

The follow-up study COACTIV-R in 2007 looked at the knowledge of trainee lawyers.

Structure of the study

COACTIV is a supplementary study to the German PISA study 2003/04 and was carried out by Jürgen Baumert (Max Planck Institute Berlin), Werner Blum (Kassel) and Michael Neubrand (Oldenburg). Twice at an interval of one year (end of 9th, end of 10th grade) math teachers in the classes examined in PISA were tested and questioned.

Both technical and didactic knowledge were tested.

Expertise

is a profound mathematical understanding of the subject matter, which from the point of view of academic research would be called " elementary mathematics ". It goes beyond everyday knowledge and good school knowledge of a year-old student. 

Beispiel: "Begründen Sie warum 0,9999… = 1 ist!"
Didactic knowledge

is pedagogically-psychologically oriented mathematical knowledge about how mathematics can be made accessible to students. This concerns, for example, the choice of certain tasks or illustrations. 

Beispiel: "S fragt: ‚Ich verstehe nicht, warum (-1)∙(-1) = 1‘
Erläutern Sie ihm/ihr den Sachverhalt auf möglichst vielen verschiedenen Wegen."

In addition, further characteristics such as motivation and resilience of the teachers were determined.

Attendees

Data were received from 198 teachers, 85 (43%) of whom were female. The average age of the participating teachers was 47.2 (SD = 8.5; age range: 28 - 65). 85 teachers taught mathematics at grammar school, 70 at secondary school, 21 at comprehensive school, and 22 at middle, secondary, or regular schools.

methodology

The data sources and survey instruments can be grouped according to teacher, lesson and student. The teachers completed written and computer-based questionnaires. Knowledge tests were also carried out.

The lessons were evaluated with the help of the teacher and student surveys, as well as with the assessment of homework, lesson assignments and classwork. (45,000 tasks were classified.)

The PISA results and standardized questionnaires were available for the group of students.

Results

Teaching and task culture

Cognitively activating and independence-promoting lessons were rarely found. The most important evidence was a homogeneous mathematical task culture: Neither the different functions of a task nor the type of school cause a greater variation in relation to a cognitively activating potential. This task culture is mainly dominated by the orientation towards calculus. The tasks set rarely offered an opportunity for a substantial discussion of mathematical content. There is a high proportion (50%) of technical tasks that can be solved using known mathematical procedures.

Secondary school pupils report lessons that are characterized by individual support and cognitive challenges with a high level of disruption and discipline problems. High school students, on the other hand, describe low-disruption, less demanding lessons in which they feel little individual support from the teacher. The judgments made by teachers and students largely agree.

Expertise and didactic knowledge

A solid specialist knowledge of the background to school mathematics is obviously an indispensable prerequisite for specialist didactic knowledge. However, it is by no means the case that specialist knowledge can replace specialist didactic knowledge. The comparison between grammar school and non-grammar school teachers showed the clearest difference in specialist knowledge, but the gymn. Teachers also perform better in didactic knowledge. At the same time, there is low subject didact. Knowledge always goes hand in hand with low expertise. Inadequate specialist knowledge cannot be achieved with subject-matter didact. Compensate for knowledge. - The subject-didactic knowledge alone predicts the extent of the cognitive activation of the students in the classroom. The more a teacher knows about how mathematical content can be made available, the more challenging the class will be for the students. None of the other facets had any additional explanatory value for the level of cognitive activation.

Teaching experience

There is no positive connection between teaching experience (number of years taught so far) and specialist knowledge or subject-related didactic knowledge. This suggests that math teachers' knowledge was largely acquired in training.

enthusiasm

A distinction was made between two types of enthusiasm : enthusiasm for the subject and enthusiasm for teaching. Only enthusiasm for teaching has been proven to have advantages in teaching quality. Enthusiasm for the subject had no demonstrable direct impact on the quality of teaching.

Occupational demands

The teaching of teachers who, according to their own statements, suffered from occupational stress or exhaustion was rated less positively by their students.

reception

The results of the study were discussed in a wide variety of media, mainly because they contradict common prejudices about teachers. Among others in the ZEIT, the FAZ and the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

literature

  • Mareike Kunter , Jürgen Baumert , Werner Blum , Uta Klusmann , Stefan Krauss, Michael Neubrand (eds.): Professional competence of teachers: results of the research program COACTIV . Waxmann Verlag GmbH, Münster 2011.
  • Mareike Kunter, Jürgen Baumert, Werner Blum, Uta Klusmann, Stefan Krauss, Michael Neubrand (Eds.): Cognitive Activation in the Mathematics Classroom and Professional Competence of Teachers: Results from the COACTIV Project . Mathematics Teacher Education: Vol. 8 Springer, New York 2013.

credentials

  1. ^ Page of the MPI in Berlin on COACTIV
  2. ↑ COACTIV-R page
  3. ↑ a b Mareike Kunter: Teachers put to the test: the professional competence of math teachers. In: Research Report. Max Plack Society for Educational Research, 2007, accessed December 2, 2018 .
  4. ↑ "Study: The majority of Germans consider teachers to be overwhelmed" Welt.de (March 26, 2009)
  5. ↑ "How teachers really are" DIE ZEIT (June 4, 2009)
  6. ↑ "Bonuses for the Best" DIE ZEIT (April 8, 2009)
  7. ↑ "School is the great equalizer" Interview with Prof. Dr. Jürgen Baumert in ZEIT (September 18, 2008 No. 39)
  8. ↑ "Are teachers more stupid?" FAZ (March 24, 2009)
  9. ^ "Lots of holidays, nasty students and 50-hour weeks" sueddeutsche.de (April 20, 2009) ( Memento from December 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive )