School - a place where everyone has had their own experiences of teaching and learning and has formed an opinion on questions of good school organization or the school system. During your own school years, you probably noticed that how well you learn can be influenced by the learning conditions and learning strategies. And you may even have reached the point where you no longer knew what you were learning in class. What are the reasons for this? Have you ever noticed that different teachers sometimes teach the same content very differently? What do you think about a system in which, after a few years of elementary school, students are assigned to different types of schools that will determine the course of their life? Why do you think success or failure at school is linked to social background? How can schools in challenging situations be supported and what characterises good teaching in the culture of digitalisation? These are all questions that directly affect school students, teachers, school administrators, and education policymakers. They should not be dealt with on the basis of personal experiences and opinions, but require answers based on empirical research into schools and teaching and learning.
The specialism School and Classroom Research at the Institute of Educational Science, with its focus on formal learning, conducts this research and addresses these questions from a scientific perspective in the taught degree courses. In doing so, it enables a look at the level of the school system (macro), the individual school (meso) and the teachers and learners (micro). It analyses developmental processes and potentials at the classroom level, as well as the interaction between teachers and students. This also enables a scientific perspective on the question of how schools and formal learning are changing and how the school system is dealing or should deal with particular social challenges or even crises.
School and classroom research thus looks at teaching and learning from many different perspectives. As such, the various research groups of the Institute of Education have different focal points. The group working on school research takes a theory-based approach to problems of formal learning processes. This includes, for example, the connection between social background and educational success beyond the achievement principle, the special position of the Gymnasium (grammar school) in the secondary school system, or alternative educational pathways to getting the Abitur (the secondary school leaving certificate). The group working on the subject didactics of pedagogy considers the effects of system development processes on the position of the subject of pedagogy, while also directing research interest at subject-related perceptions of and attitudes to those involved in teaching. In the context of teaching and learning research, one topic of interest is how learners can learn to learn systematically and strategically and how these skills can be taught. One of the core topics of for the educational psychology group addresses deals with the question of how learning tasks and exercises must be designed to enable long-term learning success.
School and classroom research uses various methodological tools from qualitative and quantitative empirical research to scientifically address its questions. In doing so, the perspectives on the persons involved in teaching and learning, the lessons, the individual school and the embedding of these different aspects in society and the education system are all related to each other in order to obtain as comprehensive a picture as possible.
In the Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) as well as in the Master of Arts (M.A.) in Educational Science, students will develop a foundation in theory and research methods in the field of teaching and learning. The focus here is on individual learning processes and the design of learning tasks and learning environments that can also include learning in groups or digitally supported learning.
The Master of Education (M.Ed.), in particular, is where courses in educational studies are offered. Here, the functions of the school as a social institution are dealt with, from which the conditions and structures of school activities can both result and be derived. In addition, the basic characteristics of teaching and learning in schools are taught, and the planning, analysis and diagnosis of teaching processes are tested during a practice semester. Topics and findings from current research projects are included in the course offerings.
The M. Ed. Subject Didactics of Pädagogik programme of study is aimed at prospective teachers of Pädagogik.† It imparts knowledge of institutional framework conditions and subject-specific concepts of teaching and learning. In addition, professional strategies for observing, analysing and planning Pädagogik lessons are all put into practice.
† Pädagogik is a school subject taught at secondary school level in North Rhine-Westphalia and occasionally in other federal states in Germany.
Find out more about our research on the websites of the working groups of:
Prof. Dr. Gabriele Bellenberg (school research and pedagogy), Prof. Dr. Grit im Brahm (empirical educational research and teaching development), Prof. Dr. Julian Roelle (educational psychology), Prof. Dr. Joachim Wirth (teaching and learning research), Dr. Kirsten Bubenzer (subject didactics for pedagogy).