The study compared the perceptions of adults from four countries about storytelling. Americans (N = 153), Germans (N = 163), Chinese (N = 324), and Vietnamese (N = 356) completed a survey. Americans' scores on measures of storytelling experiences were the highest overall. Americans and Germans reported having significantly more childhood…

This study examined the effects of teachers' biology-specific dimensions of professional knowledge--pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and content knowledge (CK)--and cognitively activating biology instruction, as a feature of instructional quality, on students' learning. The sample comprised 39 German secondary school teachers whose lessons on…

In secularising Germany the aim of religious education (RE) is under discussion. The churches opt for denominational education familiarising the students with their own religious tradition. Humanists claim an ethical education, giving students objective information about different religions. Which perspective do students who will become RE…

Learning the meaningful use of the microscope is an essential requirement in school curricula. Modern science and medicine is hardly conceivable without the inclusion of microscopy. The number of didactic studies in this area, however, is negligible. Real microscopy is rarely used to gain knowledge in higher school years. Could the understanding…

In this intervention study, we investigated how we could teach university students who were majoring in education to teach reading strategies. The goal of the study was to analyze whether and to what extent students would benefit from the intervention with respect to their own learning. Did their own reading skills improve after they attended the…

The authors first ask to what extent future teachers in Germany endorse teaching motivations indicated by the FIT-Choice scale. This includes reporting on the confirmatory factor analysis they carried out to examine and to replicate the FIT-Choice scale structure in the specific cultural context of Germany with a sample of 1287 preservice…

We investigated the factorial structure of preservice teachers' academic self-concept with regard to three domains of professional knowledge (content knowledge [CK], pedagogical content knowledge [PCK], and pedagogical/psychological knowledge [PPK]). We also analyzed the relation between preservice teachers' academic self-concept and their…

Children and adolescents spend a large part of their day at school. Physical and mental problems result from physical inactivity, sitting positions at work and "indoor lifestyle" (WHO 2004). Therefore, health education is a major topic in school. Biology classes (scholastic) can make an important contribution in this context. Health as a…

With decreasing numbers of students pursuing a career in science (OECD, 2008), the call for educational reforms building a basis for an interest in science is great. Cooperation between schools and universities are an important aspect of these reforms, as they aim at sparking an interest in science (Robert Bosch Foundation, 2005). The Ministry of…

High dropout rates are still a problem with online training. It is strongly suggested that learner characteristics influence the decision to persist in an online course or to drop out. The study explored the differences in domain-specific prior knowledge, motivation, computer attitude, computer anxiety, and learning skills between dropouts and…

This study gathers evidence on policies that aim to raise students' learning outcomes through incentives and support measures to enhance teacher quality. A central concern is to identify policies that are effective and efficient. These include incentives and support systems to ensure that high-quality candidates are recruited to initial teacher…

There is a worldwide debate about the need for male teachers as role-models especially for boys. This might motivate young men to start a teacher career expecting that their gender is the essential qualification. In a German project we interviewed upper secondary students regarding their study plans and found that most of them thought that…

In this study, the development of prospective early childhood teachers' competencies during teacher education is investigated. In detail, early childhood teachers' beliefs about the relevance of competencies, their competence-related self-concept and objective measures of knowledge regarding language and language development were assessed.…

This paper considers how engaging with the principles of inclusive research can enhance research studies that set out to understand the experiences of student teachers on initial teacher education programmes. It does so by describing the methodological development of an on-going study of student teachers' perspectives on working with diverse…

Essays that are assigned as homework in large classes are prone to cheating via unauthorized collaboration. In this study, we compared the ability of a software tool based on Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) and student teaching assistants to detect plagiarism in a large group of students. To do so, we took two approaches: the first approach was…