Volume 4 (2021): Issue 1 (December 2021)

Research on domain-specific teaching and learning has experienced an enormous upswing in the last twenty years. For a further development of this research it would be beneficial if certain clusters or research designs would be elaborated, which are typical for research on domain-specific teaching and learning and which stimulate and orient new research projects. This article addresses this question on the basis of a study in Religious Didactics. First, it discusses the use of the concept of research design to establish a cluster of relevant research procedures (1.). Then the results of the study will be described, namely that such designs are characterized by a) the theories, they refer to, b) the subject area they address, and c) the methodologies they conduct (2.) It will be generalized beyond the field of Religious Didactics and seven potential designs of research on domain-specific teaching and learning will be sketched (3.) An invitation to reflect this question further on ends this article (4.)

Cardiac health is a major health issue in modern societies. To improve bystander response to cardiac arrests, it has been recommended to introduce instruction in basic life support (BLS) into health-related subject-matter education (e.g., biology). This study aims to explore perceived specific interest, knowledge and recorded BLS performance before and after a BLS intervention, as well as possible effects of gender. Data of N = 365 secondary school students in Germany was analysed. They answered a questionnaire dealing with subject-related interest and a knowledge-test, before and after at least two lessons about BLS. A subgroup of students (n = 186) attended a simulation-based assessment. We found that students performed better chest compressions, but that initial interest was not sustained during intervention, particularly in the case of male students. The quality of chest compressions and knowledge growth can be improved for some aspects and future classroom interventions should aim towards a better understanding of students’ interest motives for learning these skills. The role of more problem- and health-oriented, reflective, and modular learning opportunities in BLS education should be investigated to better address these issues compared to common instruction-centred trainings.

Teachers’ diagnostic judgments are considered highly relevant for good teaching and successful learning. A question regularly asked is: Which aspects of diagnostic judgments are generic and which aspects are specific for a subject or even a topic within that subject? Several sources of specificity have to be considered in diagnostic judgment processes. In order to analyze systematically the aspect of specificity in research on diagnostic judgments, we propose a framework of diagnostic judgments, which explicates relevant components of thinking and behavior on the level of the student and the teacher. We use this framework to discuss systematically the question of content specificity.

The diagnostic competence of foreign language teachers includes the ability to judge oral language productions. However, these are difficult to judge because of their complexity. Video-based data can be used to explore the diagnostic processes when judging oral productions. In the present study, prospective teachers evaluate nine video samples twice – directly after first viewing the video and after using a rating scale regarding the linguistic features. This study examines the extent to which prospective primary and secondary level teachers use different information to make a judgement compared with experts. The results show that linguistic features are incorporated to varying degrees into the formation of judgements and vary according to pre-service teacher training. Besides the focus on linguistic features, a high proportion of unexplained variance remains in the judgements of the prospective teachers.

The diagnostic judgments teachers make can be regarded as inferences from manifest observable evidence on students’ behavior (e.g., responses to a task) to their latent traits (e.g., misconceptions). The judgment process can be modeled by Bayesian reasoning. We use this framework to analyze the situation of teachers’ diagnostic judgments on students’ potential misconceptions based on students’ responses. Humans typically deviate from normative Bayesian reasoning and apply heuristic strategies, often by only partially processing the available information (e.g., neglecting base rates). From the perspective of ecological rationality, such heuristics possibly constitute viable cognitive strategies for assessing student errors. We investigate the adequacy of a cognitively plausible heuristic strategy, which amounts to approximating the average probability information on prior hypotheses (base rates of student misconceptions) and evidence (student errors). With a computational simulation, we compare this strategy to optimal Bayesian reasoning and to information-neglecting strategies. We interpret the resulting accuracy within the ecology of informal student assessment.

An important aspect of mathematics teachers’ diagnostic competences is the ability to judge the difficulty of a mathematical task. The process of judging task difficulty includes the perception and interpretation of task characteristics that are potentially challenging for students. Such judgement processes are often quick and difficult to assess. Most previous studies described these processes on the basis of teachers’ verbal reports. A more recent approach to tap into cognitive processes is eye tracking. However, there is no firm knowledge yet whether eye tracking allows for a reliable assessment of teachers’ judgements of mathematical task difficulty. The present study aims at filling this gap. We asked N = 55 prospective mathematics teachers to judge the difficulty of 20 tasks on linear functions, some of which included characteristics that are well known to be challenging for students. Participants viewed the tasks on a computer screen while their eye movements were recorded with an eye tracker. Our analyses of various eye-tracking parameters suggest that “fixation duration”, “fixation duration average” and “number of fixations” were the most reliable measures of participants’ perception and interpretation processes across a set of tasks. These measures were also correlated with participants’ judgement accuracy. Using qualitative analyses of two participants’ eye-tracking data, we illustrate when and how they processed the relevant task characteristics. In conclusion, eye tracking may be considered a suitable method for assessing how teachers detect task difficulty. We discuss implications for the use of eye tracking in further research on teachers’ diagnostic competences.

The selection and modification of mathematical tasks requires teachers to adequately judge task difficulty. Despite such importance, little is known about teachers’ cognitive processes that underlie these judgments. Considering possible interrelations with teaching experience and specific aspects of PCK/PK, this study reconstructs teachers’ perception and processing of task characteristics while judging task difficulty for students. In the field of fraction calculation, the tasks’ difficulty is varied systematically by modifications in the tasks’ instructional design (according to cognitive load theory; e.g., split-attention vs. integrated format) and by adjusting the fractions’ complexity (e.g., like vs. unlike fractions). The study was conducted with 55 pre- and 35 in-service mathematics teachers. The results suggest that both groups predominantly perceive and process mathematical, but only rarely instructional task characteristics. Contrary to expectations, the findings indicate that participants’ specific PCK/PK concerning difficulty-generating task characteristics is high in both areas – fraction and instructional design.