Innovative university teaching: How are practical knowledge, reflection competences and job orientation´fostered in students?

URL:	https://earli.org/sites/default/files/2018-08/SIG4...
Document Type:	Conference or workshop publication
Year of publication:	2018
Book title:	EARLI SIG 4 Conference 2018 : 29-31 August, 2018, Giessen, Germany : Book of abstracts
Page range:	38-39
Conference title:	EARLI SIG 4 Conference 2018 Higher Education
Location of the conference venue:	Gießen, Germany
Date of the conference:	29.-31.08.2018
Place of publication:	Leuven
Publishing house:	EARLI, European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction
Publication language:	English
Institution:	School of Social Sciences > Bildungspsychologie (Münzer 2012-)
Subject:	150 Psychology
Keywords (English):	Practical knowledge , reflection competences , job orientation , Service-Learning
Abstract:	In times where universities are increasingly faced with the call for more practical approaches and expected to address societal issues, the implementation of new teaching formats is a main challenge in higher education. Innovative, experience-based university teaching formats, such as the Service-Learning concept, are supposed to foster the personal, social and academic skills of students (Baltes, Hofer & Sliwka, 2007). Whereas in the American literature empirical evidence is shown (e.g. Celio et al., 2011; Yorio & Ye, 2012), for the German education context compelling evidence is still lacking (Reinders, 2016). Hence, further research about the conditions of successful innovative teaching, as well as the development of evaluation instruments is needed. Following up on first German empirical effectiveness studies (Reinders, 2016) the present work will focus on three main indicators of successful innovative teaching, namely practical knowledge (PK), reflection competences (RC) and job orientation (JO). First study series: development of evaluation instruments. After a pre-study (N = 219), where self-reporting items for the three indicators PK, RC and JO were developed and piloted, study 1 (N = 126) tested a revised version, distinguishing between the facet course evaluation (CE) and increase of competence (IC) within the indicator variables. A CFA was used to examine the postulated six-factorial data structure (CFI = .858; RMSEA = .063). Drawing upon the results of confirmatory and reliability analyses, items were reduced, so that each facet questionnaire, CE ad IC, remained with 15 items, five per indicator variable. Study 2 (N = 131) constituted a first validation by including substantively similar scales (see Linninger, 2016; Kunter et al., 2016; Reinders et al., 2015) into the survey. Further analyses are to be conducted. Second study series: implementation of instruments. The validated instruments will be implemented (02/2018 – 06/2018) for the evaluation of three different innovative university courses within the disciplines of psychology, history and business administration. Each innovative course will be paired with a classical course addressing a similar content. The IC facet questionnaire will be implemented as pre- and posttest whereas the CE facet questionnaire will be only implemented as a posttest. The aim is to compare the subjective competence increase of students on PK, RC and JO between innovative and classical teaching formats as well as to evaluate the course content respective the interested indicator variables. Results are analyzed together with the responsible lecturers to, where necessary, adapt the course content and structure. A re-evaluation is planned for the semester thereafter to examine possible improvements, modifications or consistencies. The outlined project is meant to explore new ways of teaching and learning. On one hand, universities must answer the need of educating students with adaptive skills to cope in faster changing contexts. On the other hand, innovative concepts provide an opportunity for universities to keep in touch with society and their environment.