Pre-scientific work

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The pre- academic work (VWA, sometimes also VwA) is the first pillar of the Matura in Austria. It consists of a written work on a topic, including its presentation and discussion, to be prepared at a pre-academic level and is thus in a certain way the successor to the departmental work , but unlike this, it is mandatory for all pupils of a general secondary school (AHS) . At a vocational college (BHS) , the final thesis is called the diploma thesis .

organization

In principle, a teacher has to supervise up to three, but no more than five, papers per graduation year. To do this, they must have appropriate professional or non-professional (informal) technical and professional competence.

From submission to successful completion of the VWA

The pupils must formulate a topic that does not have to be assigned to a specific subject in the penultimate school year and together with the expected horizon (exact topic, personal impulse, first basic literature, approximate structure) of the head teacher up to Submit for approval at the end of March. The school management then has to give its approval to the penultimate school level by the end of April or to demand the submission of a new topic while setting a grace period. With the approval, the pupils have access to a topic that is retained even if the 7th grade is repeated.

The pre-academic thesis must be submitted at the end of the first week of the second semester of the last school year both in digital form (upload via the Internet to the so-called VWA approval database) and in duplicate in printed form. Immediately after submission, the work is examined with plagiarism search software. The supervising teacher receives the results of the examination a few days later.

Around one to two months after submitting the thesis, the student must present his or her pre-academic work to the school leaving examination committee. Here, the candidate goes into important key points of the work and thus proves his presentation skills. The short presentation is followed by a discussion where the student answers both content-related and methodological questions. The total duration of the presentation and discussion is ten to 15 minutes. The thesis will then be graded by the examination committee.

construction

The Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research recommends the following structure in its handout:

  • Title page
  • Abstract (German or English, regardless of the language of the work)
  • Preface (optional)
  • contents
  • Text part: Introduction - main part - conclusion (conclusion)
  • bibliography
  • List of figures (optional)
  • List of Abbreviations (optional)
  • Glossary (optional)
  • Attachment (optional)
  • Accompanying protocol and notes by the teacher
  • Statutory declaration

The following points are also conceivable:

  • Cover sheet (optional)
  • Formula directory (optional)
  • List of tables (optional)
  • Persons, place or subject indexes (optional)
  • Words of thanks (optional)

Scope and formal criteria

The pre-scientific work must be in A4 format (described on one side) and have a length of "a maximum of around 60,000 characters (including spaces, references in the text and footnotes), excluding the foreword, list of contents, literature and abbreviations". If, for certain reasons, a work contains more than 60,000 characters, these reasons must be stated in the accompanying protocol.

The assessment of the scope is problematic in the case of work that is highly experimental (chemistry, physics) or whose work focuses on construction ( descriptive geometry ). However, after the previous lower limit of 40,000 characters was deleted without replacement in 2016, there are no problems here in practice. In principle, in agreement with the supervisor, the inclusion of practical or graphic work is just as permissible as the writing in a living foreign language.

Question and abstract

Until 2016, the examination regulations also provided for a so-called "research question" (as the terminology in some older documents of the ministry) or a scientific "question". It was expressly mentioned in Section 8, Paragraph 5, old version of the secondary examination regulation as a mandatory content of the abstract. It was deleted with the ordinance in Federal Law Gazette II No. 107/2016 so that only the topic, the problem formulation and the main results need to be conclusively presented in around 1,000 to 1,500 characters (including spaces) in the abstract. The abstract must be written in German or English.

criticism

On the one hand, critics of the draft criticize the designation as “pre-scientific”, since this term has a completely different meaning in the history of science and describes a procedure that has nothing to do with a cognitive approach, but rather is linked to a mythical-religious thinking; on the other hand, there is a warning against the “copy-and-paste” syndrome, that is, against the fact that this type of task could lead many students not to write their own work.

In addition, in February 2015 when it was mandatory to upload the pre-academic thesis to the dedicated website, serious problems arose due to the server being overloaded. Furthermore, there were various errors when submitting the topics for the 2015/16 year, for example when the supervisor and the following instances were again shown the outdated, already rejected version instead of the one revised by the student when a rejected topic was submitted again, and the student received no notification if their topic creation was declined.

Gernot Schreyer, President of the Federal Parents' Association, assumes that a third of all pre-scientific papers were written by third parties, especially parents. This assumption is based on surveys of parents' associations from 2016. Of course, it is often difficult to prove beyond doubt that students did not write the work independently.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ § 7 AHS examination regulations. Retrieved October 12, 2019 .
  2. ↑ § 8 Paragraph 1 AHS examination regulations. Retrieved October 12, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Formulation of the topic: horizon of expectations. Retrieved October 12, 2019 .
  4. ↑ § 8 Paragraph 2 AHS examination regulations. Retrieved October 12, 2019 .
  5. ↑ § 10 AHS examination regulations. Retrieved October 12, 2019 .
  6. ↑ § 9 Paragraph 4 AHS examination regulations. Retrieved October 12, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Handbook for VWA supervisors vwa-betreuungsperson.at
  8. ↑ Federal Ministry of Education (Dept. I / 2): Non-binding handout for the examination area “pre-academic work” (VWA). Retrieved October 16, 2019 . (PDF)
  9. ↑ Structure and content of a pre-academic paper
  10. ↑ Cover sheet vorwissenschaftlicharbeit.info
  11. ↑ Section 8, Paragraph 4 of the ordinance of the Federal Minister for Education, Art and Culture on the secondary school leaving examination (AHS examination regulations). In: Federal legal information system. Retrieved October 12, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Extent (number of pages, number of characters) of the pre-scientific work vorwissenschaftlicharbeit.info
  13. ↑ Official explanations to Federal Law Gazette II No. 107/2016. Retrieved October 13, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Change in the ordinance on the final examination vorwissenschaftlicharbeit.info
  15. ↑ cf. Der Standard, Readers' Forum, Wednesday, July 1, 2009
  16. ^ The fear of the copy-paste partial high school diploma . Commentary by Science Minister Töchterle in the standard
  17. ^ VWA: Next problem with the central school- leaving exam. In: kurier.at. February 11, 2015, accessed December 25, 2017 .
  18. ↑ Federal Parents' Association. Retrieved on June 4, 2018 (German).
  19. ↑ Do the parents write the pre-academic work of the school leavers? In: The press . ( diepresse.com [accessed June 4, 2018]).