Purpose: This study aims to investigate how physical education teachers analyze their students' swimming skills. Particular attention is given to information gathering within the diagnostic process. Methods: Data were collected from a quantitative online survey of German physical education teachers from primary and secondary schools (n = 551).…

Previous research has focused on self-assessments rather than objective assessments for assessing teachers' technological knowledge (TK). Notwithstanding, empirical studies have failed to show stable relationships between self-assessments and objective assessments. In this study, we investigate the extent to which scenario-based self-assessments…

Lockdowns imposed by many countries on their populations at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis forced teachers to adapt quickly and without adequate preparation to distance teaching. In this paper, we focus on one of the most formidable challenges that teachers faced during the lockdowns and even in the post-lockdown emergency period, namely,…

Many contemporary analyses criticise metrics-based evaluation in the higher education context as a neoliberal technology, notwithstanding the different national contexts and organisational topographies in which metrics are used. This Anglo-German study offers a comparative exploration of the role of metrics in two contrasting cases: highly…

Although the high costs of implementing personnel development programs in enterprises and increasingly in universities as well are commonly accepted, the scientifically-grounded evaluation of a program's effectiveness is often neglected. The aim of this paper was to evaluate a personnel development program for academics at a German university…

In March 2020, many schools worldwide were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This closure confronted mathematics teachers with the challenging transition to emergency remote teaching (ERT). How did students experience ERT, and how did these experiences relate to context variables and to their teachers' beliefs and practices? In particular, what…

This book innovatively connects the two fields of oracy and practice-oriented empirical research in English language education. It creates synergies and proposes innovative approaches to the study of oracy in the context of learning and teaching English as a second, additional or foreign language. The book also develops a contemporary and holistic…

Quality assurance and quality development represent central challenges of higher education institutions (HEIs). In this context, the term quality culture has gained increasing attention. Quality culture refers to an organizational culture, which emphasizes the importance of continuous quality improvement, shared attitudes, and commitment towards…

Decision-making in socioscientific issues (SSI) constitutes a real challenge for both biology teachers and learners. The assessment of students' performances in SSIs constitutes a problem, especially for biology teachers. The study at hand was conducted in Germany and uses a qualitative approach following the research procedures of grounded theory…

Educational research emphasizes the advantages of multimethod designs. However, if the design comprises different perspectives, the question of construct validity emerges. We related this question to student and teacher ratings of student-student relations, which are of high interest in research on physical education. In our study, 2,160 students…

This paper reports on methodological approaches, experiences and expectations referring to impact analysis of quality assurance from the perspective of three higher education institutions (students, teaching staff, quality managers) from Germany, Finland and Romania. The presentations of the three sample institutions focus on discussing the core…

This article explores ways in which learners' achievements can be assessed and reflected in both the domains of linguistic performance and subject-content learning. The content and language integrated learning (CLIL) approach adopted by the authors is one in which language learning and content learning are truly integrated and where neither…

This article investigates if online evaluation leads to different results than paper-and-pencil evaluation. Given that most previous studies confound the evaluation mode (online versus paper) with the evaluation situation (in class versus after class), we expected that evaluation results would be influenced only by the evaluation situation,…

The study reported in this article draws upon data collected for the programme "Increasing the Efficiency of Mathematics and Science instruction" (SINUS-Transfer), a professional development project in Germany. This programme's approach requires teachers to improve their teaching in a cooperative manner and with regard to pedagogical…

Sketches major arguments in the discussion on school autonomy and links these with debates on school quality. Argues that although autonomy may entail debureaucratization, it does not require the withdrawal of the state. Shows how concepts of market and competition in pedagogical contexts differ from those in economic contexts. (DSK)