Refine
Year of publication
Document Type
- Article (47)
- Doctoral Thesis (4)
- Book (2)
- Part of a Book (1)
Language
- English (54) (remove)
Has Fulltext
- yes (54) (remove)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (54) (remove)
Keywords
- aging (3)
- Entscheidungsassistenz (2)
- Environmental support (2)
- Medical consultation (2)
- PISA (2)
- Patient needs (2)
- Patientenbedürfnisse (2)
- Person-Umwelt-Passung (2)
- Person-environment fit (2)
- Supported decision making (2)
Institute
- Erziehungswissenschaften (54) (remove)
When discussing possible consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems certain that the effects of the pandemic will most likely magnify existing educational disparities in Europe and around the world. However, so far, little is known about how the conditions and consequences of distance learning intensify existing dynamics of educational inequalities. This paper aims at answering the question of how educational disadvantages in socially deprived settings are exacerbated through the pandemic. On this basis, it reflects on potential educational practices that can help countering these dynamics. For this study, interviews with teachers in socio-economically disadvantaged (n = 12) and in privileged settings (n = 4) were conducted, transcribed and investigated through qualitative data analysis. The data were categorized with reference to Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of capital to analyze and systematize the empirical results. Finally, a case study from the interview material offers options for action that can counteract a possible worsening of educational disadvantages and help (re-)think school and teaching based on the experiences gained during the lockdown.
The paper contributes to design discourse by drawing on Educational Design Research (EDR) that has been conducted into what we call a Zone of Possibility (ZoP) over the past seven years. We define a ZoP as a place where individuals can overcome the constraints of expectations and power structures to effect desired change. Specifically, this paper presents details of how our initial research question (RQ1) has evolved to the one presented in the conclusions (RQ2); both RQs are summarised below in the section “Research Questions.” To describe this evolution, the paper is presented as 3 cases (Confer, ZoP Stokes Croft and Google Lens in HE) that have provided insights to explore the concept of the ZoP and its implications for EDR. Specifically, one of the main conclusions is the importance of bridging positioning practices as “successful communication” and an understanding of social context in hybrid contexts (ie, the ZoP).
The use of scaffolding to promote preschool children’s competencies of evidence-based reasoning
(2021)
Scientific reasoning encompasses individuals‘ evaluation of evidence with regard to a given hypothesis. In this study, we investigated whether preschool children are able to reason with empirical evidence in the science context of elasticity. N = 63 preschoolers were presented with tasks following the deductive reasoning paradigm and were asked to evaluate the relevance of given events (objects) with regard to a hypothesis. In a repeated measures experimental design with three groups, we tested whether different forms of scaffolding (adaptive prompts with/without modeling of advanced reasoning) would promote children’s reasoning compared to a control group without intervention. We found that adaptive prompts with modeling significantly improved children’s evaluation of irrelevant events in the posttest. Further, these children’s reasoning patterns scored significantly higher than those of the control group. Our results suggest that preschool children are able to reason with evidence if they are given adequate support. Specifically, the modeling of advanced reasoning functioned as a scaffold beyond the use of adaptive prompts in irrelevant event evaluations.
This thesis examines the spread and promotion of English on a global level, from a historical perspective in particular ‘Third World’ contexts. The globalization of English as an exclusive language of power is considered to be a trap, when accompanied by an ideology aiming to universalize monolingual and monocultural norms and standards. World-wide English diffusion is related - not to any mystical effects of some psycho-social mechanisms or transmuting alchemy - but to a global rise of military, political, economic, communicational and cultural Euro-American hegemony. The fact that the English language has become perhaps the primary medium of social control and power has not been given a prominent place in the analyses of established social scientists or political planners. On the contrary, the positively idealized dominance of English as a universal medium has become part of a collection of myths seeking to deny the global reality of multilingualism. Not allowing for the existence of any power besides itself, the perpetuation of this hegemony of English within a multilingual scenario has become a contradiction in terms. Centuries of colonialism, followed by neo-colonialism, are seen to have resulted in a world-wide consensus favouring centralization and homogenization of state and world economies, administrations, language, education and mass media systems, as prerequisites to local and global unity. The particular case of India as encountered by a colonizing Britain is used to illustrate the historical clash between differing language and educational traditions and cultures. It was on the strength of their own predominantly positive attitudes towards diversity - encoded in their promotion of complex social and religious philosophies, as well as varied economic and educational practices of pluralism and hierarchy-without-imposition, unity in diversity, etc. - that the people and their leaders finally achieved Indian independence from British colonialism. Contemporary Indian society, however, is still grappling with the legacy of a Eurocentric civilizational model - encoded in the neo-colonial system of English education - and in conflict with its own positively idealized and actively promoted traditions of pluralism. On national and international levels, the destabilization and destruction of diversity continues to threaten more than the linguistic and cultural uniqueness of numerous communities and individuals. For those majorities and minorities who refuse to give up their ‘differences’, political, economic and physical survival is at stake. A paradoxical reality, seldom acknowledged, is that while for the politically and economically already powerful language groups, the enormous resources spent on formal (language) education have become a means to maintain their material and political capital, whereas for the majority of modern societies' marginalized members, powerful linguistic barriers to full economic or political participation remain firmly in place. The justifications for perpetuating exclusionary policies and sustaining structural inequality have come from monocultural ideological assumptions in education and language policies as one of the key mechanisms for state control of labour. This thesis concludes that the trap of an ideologically exclusive status for English can be avoided by theoretically positivizing and institutionally promoting existing multilingual and multicultural peoples’ realities as an integral part of their human rights, in order to resist global Englishization.
Complex problem solving (CPS) is a highly transversal competence needed in educational and vocational settings as well as everyday life. The assessment of CPS is often computer-based, and therefore provides data regarding not only the outcome but also the process of CPS. However, research addressing this issue is scarce. In this article we investigated planning activities in the process of complex problem solving. We operationalized planning through three behavioral measures indicating the duration of the longest planning interval, the delay of the longest planning interval and the variance of intervals between each two successive interactions. We found a significant negative average effect for our delay indicator, indicating that early planning in CPS is more beneficial. However, we also found effects depending on task and interaction effects for all three indicators, suggesting that the effects of different planning behaviors on CPS are highly intertwined.
The empirical research investigates the orientation and learning processes of adolescents concerning global issues in different educational settings. How do adolescents create their knowledge about the world? What worldviews and ideas do adolescents have about global perspectives? How do they deal with the complexity of world society? The qualitative-empirical research focuses on the comparative analysis of learning processes in different educational settings, such as school lessons in different subjects, school-based extra-curricular activities and non-formal youth work outside school. The main topic of the paper is a case study of a group of female students who run World Shop as student company. The objective is to describe a specific learning culture at a gymnasium, a German grammar school, and the learning processes which occur within a certain learning arrangement. In this context, the student company is important both as an extra-curricular project and because issues which occur in its work setting are integrated into different school lessons. The integration of Global Education in school culture results from the presence of the student company in everyday life at school and the combination of informal learning processes within the peer milieu and formal systematic instruction in school lessons. The research reveals the great potential for the desired acquisition of competencies and knowledge. This in turn demonstrates the extent that student learning is encouraged by a particular school and learning culture.
The behavioral sciences, including most of psychology, seek to explain and predict behavior with the help of theories and models that involve concepts (e.g., attitudes) that are subsequently translated into measures. Currently, some subdisciplines such as social psychology focus almost exclusively on measures that demand reflection or even introspection when administered to persons. We argue that such a focus hinders progress in explaining behavior. One major reason is that such an exclusive focus on reflections results in common method bias, which then produces spurious relations, or in other words, low discriminant validity. Without the valid measurement of theoretical concepts, theoretical assumptions cannot be tested, and hence, theory development will be hampered. We argue that the use of a greater variety of methods would reduce these problems and would in turn foster theory building. Using a representative sample of N = 472 participants (age: M = 51.0, SD = 17.7; 54% female), we compared the validity of a classical introspective attitude measure (i.e., the New Ecological Paradigm) with that of an alternative attitude measure (i.e., the General Ecological Behavior scale). The latter measure, which was based on self-reported behavior, showed substantially better validity that we argue could aid theory development.
Sleep and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have repeatedly been found to be associated with each other. However, the ecological validity of daily life studies to examine the effect of sleep on ADHD symptoms is rarely made use of. In an ambulatory assessment study with measurement burst design, consisting of three bursts (each 6 months apart) of 18 days each, 70 German schoolchildren aged 10–12 years reported on their sleep quality each morning and on their subjective ADHD symptom levels as well as their sleepiness three times a day. It was hypothesized that nightly sleep quality is negatively associated with ADHD symptoms on the inter- as well as the intraindividual level. Thus, we expected children who sleep better to report higher attention and self-regulation. Additionally, sleepiness during the day was hypothesized to be positively associated with ADHD symptoms on both levels, meaning that when children are sleepier, they experience more ADHD symptoms. No association of sleep quality and ADHD symptoms between or within participants was found in multilevel analyses; also, no connection was found between ADHD symptoms and daytime sleepiness on the interindividual level. Unexpectedly, a negative association was found on the intraindividual level for ADHD symptoms and daytime sleepiness, indicating that in moments when children are sleepier during the day, they experience less ADHD symptoms. Explorative analyses showed differential links of nightly sleep quality and daytime sleepiness, with the core symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity, respectively. Therefore, future analyses should take the factor structure of ADHD symptoms into account.
The present study concerns the development of a computerized tool targeting housing accessibility issues. A user-centered approach involving professionals from the housing sector and senior citizens from four European countries resulted in a fully functional prototype of a mobile application (app) including an apartment database. The app raises awareness on housing accessibility and has the potential to support decision making and strengthen all citizens regardless of functional capacity to be more active in their endeavors for a satisfying housing solution. Further refinements and additional features are needed to enhance the potential benefits; they include addressing potential challenges facing senior citizens, developing interactive features that allow users to provide input and adapting to different national contexts to make the app applicable for the European market.
Material gerontology poses the question of how aging processes are co-constituted in relation to different forms of (human and non-human) materiality. This paper makes a novel contribution by asking when aging processes are co-constituted and how these temporalities of aging are entangled with different forms of materiality. In this paper, we explore the entanglements of temporality and materiality in shaping later life by framing them as spacetimematters (Barad, 2013). By drawing on empirical examples from data from a qualitative case study in a long-term care (LTC) facility, we ask how the entanglement of materiality and temporality of a fall-detection sensor co-constitutes aging. We focus on two types of material temporality that came to matter in age-boundary-making practices at this site: the material temporality of a technology-in-training and the material temporality of (false) alarms. Both are interwoven, produced and reproduced through spacetimematterings that established age-boundaries. Against the backdrop of these findings, we propose to understand age(ing) as a situated, distributed, more-than-human process of practices: It emerges in an assemblage of technological innovation discourses, problematizations of demographic change, digitized and analog practices of care and caring, bodily functioning, daily routines, institutionalized spaces and much more. Finally, we discuss the role power plays in those spacetimematterings of aging and conclude with a research outlook for material gerontology.