Do student teachers’ wildlife value orientations impact how they judge management actions of carnivore species from different habitat status groups?

Lethal management of carnivore species in Germany differs according to the species habitat status (i.e., for new arrivals, long-established, or re-colonizing species). Management actions are not always accepted by the public. Since prospective teachers are future multipliers of public acceptance of lethal management, and teaching is influenced by ones’ value orientations, we investigated student teachers’ (N = 95) decisions on lethal management of carnivore species of different habitat status groups in relation to their wildlife value orientations (WVOs). Our results show that student teachers’ WVOs are more strongly associated with certain management actions for new arrivals and re-colonizing species than for long-established species. In those cases, their WVOs are more likely to affect teaching of decision-making in the context of management actions. Thus, teacher education should support student teachers in reflecting their value orientations for teaching local biodiversity protection

Students’ Decision-Making in Education for Sustainability-Related Extracurricular Activities—A Systematic Review of Empirical Studies

Equipping students with the capability to perform considerate decision-making is a key competence to elaborate socio-scientific issues. Particularly in the socio-scientific context of sustainable development, decision-making is required for the processing of information and the implementation of sustainable action. Extracurricular activities in education for sustainable development (ESD) offer a suitable format to promote decision-making due to their multidisciplinary and more informal structure. The purpose of this literature review is therefore to analyze empirical studies that explore students’ (1) decision-making in (2) ESD-related (3) extracurricular activities. Following the preferred-reporting of items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, a systematic search yielded 19 out of 365 articles, each of them addressing all three components. Despite the theoretical relationship, hardly any empirical enquiry is found examining the trinomial interrelation with an equal consideration of all components. Contrarily, we argue that each is positioned in favor for only one component with the others serving as a backdrop. It follows that the full potential of an equal distribution between all three foci has not been explored yet; even though integrating sustainability-related issues in extracurricular activities displays a promising learning opportunity to optimally foster students’ decision-making. Instead, studies that concentrate primarily on decision-making as a quantitatively measurable competence were predominant

Preservice Biology Teachers’ Scientific Reasoning Skills and Beliefs about Nature of Science: How Do They Develop and Is There a Mutual Relationship during the Development?

Scientific reasoning (SR) skills and nature of science (NOS) beliefs represent important characteristics of biology teachers’ professional competence. In particular, teacher education at university is formative for the professionalization of future teachers and is thus the focus of the current study. Our study aimed to examine the development of SR skills and NOS beliefs and their mutual relationship during teacher education. We applied paper-and-pencil tests to measure SR skills and NOS beliefs of 299 preservice biology teachers from 25 universities in Germany. The results of linear mixed models and planned comparisons revealed that both SR skills and NOS beliefs develop over the course of the study. Nevertheless, the development of SR skills and multiple aspects of NOS beliefs proceeds in different trajectories. Cross-lagged models showed a complex picture concerning the mutual relationship between SR skills and NOS beliefs during their development (both positive and negative). The current study contributes to the existing research because it is based on longitudinal data and allows—in contrast to cross-sectional research—conclusions about the development of SR skills and NOS beliefs

Preservice biology teachers’ scientific reasoning skills and beliefs about nature of science: how do they develop and is there a mutual relationship during the development?

Scientific reasoning (SR) skills and nature of science (NOS) beliefs represent important characteristics of biology teachers’ professional competence. In particular, teacher education at university is formative for the professionalization of future teachers and is thus the focus of the current study. Our study aimed to examine the development of SR skills and NOS beliefs and their mutual relationship during teacher education. We applied paper-and-pencil tests to measure SR skills and NOS beliefs of 299 preservice biology teachers from 25 universities in Germany. The results of linear mixed models and planned comparisons revealed that both SR skills and NOS beliefs develop over the course of the study. Nevertheless, the development of SR skills and multiple aspects of NOS beliefs proceeds in different trajectories. Cross-lagged models showed a complex picture concerning the mutual relationship between SR skills and NOS beliefs during their development (both positive and negative). The current study contributes to the existing research because it is based on longitudinal data and allows—in contrast to cross-sectional research—conclusions about the development of SR skills and NOS beliefs. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Context Matters: Accounting for Item Features in the Assessment of Citizen Scientists’ Scientific Reasoning Skills

Citizen science (CS) projects engage citizens for research purposes and promote individual learning outcomes such as scientific reasoning (SR) skills. SR refers to participants’ skills to solve problems scientifically. However, the evaluation of CS projects’ effects on learning outcomes has suffered from a lack of assessment instruments and resources. Assessments of SR have most often been validated in the context of formal education. They do not contextualize items to be authentic or to represent a wide variety of disciplines and contexts in CS research. Here, we describe the development of an assessment instrument that can be flexibly adapted to different CS research contexts. Furthermore, we show that this assessment instrument, the SR questionnaire, provides valid conclusions about participants’ SR skills. We found that the deep-structure and surface features of the items in the SR questionnaire represent the thinking processes associated with SR to a substantial extent. We suggest that practitioners and researchers consider these item features in future adaptations of the SR questionnaire. This will most likely enable them to draw valid conclusions about participants’ SR skills and to gain a deeper understanding of participants’ SR skills in CS project evaluation

Energieforschung macht Schule : Das Leibniz4U-Schülerforschungszentrum als bildungsbezogene Transfermaßnahme

[no abstract available

The Simulated Classroom Biology—A simulated classroom environment for capturing the action‐oriented professional knowledge of pre‐service teachers about evolution

Background: The professional knowledge of pre-service teachers is highly important for effective and successful teaching. In recent years, many research groups have been engaged in developing simulated classroom environments to capture especially the pedagogical knowledge (PK) of pre-service teachers, neglecting the content-related facets of professional knowledge such as pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Objectives: In the present study, we describe the development of a simulated class- room environment — the Simulated Classroom Biology (SCR Bio) — and provide evidence regarding its validity to assess pre-service biology teachers' action-oriented PCK in the area of evolution. Methods: This study examined the evidence supporting the validity of using the SCR Bio to investigate action-oriented PCK of pre-service biology teachers. The (1) evidence based on test content (expert ratings) and the (2) evidence based on relation to other variables (known-groups comparison) was obtained. We tested the SCR Bio with N = 76 German pre-service biology teachers. Results and Conclusions: Our results show the successfully operationalized PCK in the SCR Bio through explicit allocation of specific misconceptions to each virtual student's answer and the valid measurement of pre-service biology teachers' action-oriented PCK. This results in a validated simulated classroom environment for pre-service but also in-service teachers. In the future, the SCR Bio will be developed from an assessment instrument to a training tool to simulate explicit teaching situations. This allows to complement the predominantly theoretical components of university-based teacher education with practice-based simulated classroom environments

I’m fine with collecting data: Engagement profiles differ depending on scientific activities in an online community of a citizen science project

Digital technologies facilitate collaboration between citizens and scientists in citizen science (CS) projects. Besides the facilitation of data transmission and access, digital technologies promote novel formats for education in CS by including citizens in the process of collecting, analyzing, and discussing data. It is usually assumed that citizens profit more from CS the more they participate in the different steps of the scientific process. However, it has so far not been analyzed whether citizens actually engage in these steps. Therefore, we investigated citizens’ actual engagement in different scientific steps online (i.e., data collection and data analysis) in two field studies of a CS project. We then compared them with other CS projects. We analyzed behavioral engagement patterns of N = 273 participants with activity logs and cluster analyses. Opportunities to engage in different steps of the scientific process increased participants’ overall commitment compared to contributory CS projects. Yet, despite their increased commitment, participants’ engagement was only more active for data collection but not for data analysis. We discuss how participants’ perceived role as data collectors influenced their actual engagement in the scientific steps. To conclude, citizens may need support to change their role from data collectors to data inquirers

To know about science is to love it? Unraveling cause–effect relationships between knowledge and attitudes toward science in citizen science on urban wildlife ecology

Nowadays, citizens collaborate increasingly with scientists in citizen science (CS) projects on environmental issues. CS projects often have educational goals and aim to increase citizens' knowledge with the ultimate goal of fostering positive attitudes toward science. To date, little is known about the extent to which CS projects strengthen the positive interrelationship between knowledge and attitudes. Based on previous research, it has been suggested that the knowledge–attitude relationship could be further examined by focusing on different aspects: (1) different attitudinal domains, (2) topic-specific knowledge, and (3) its direction. Our study contributes to the clarification of the interrelation between scientific knowledge and attitudes toward science within the specific domain of urban wildlife ecology using cross-lagged panel analyses. We collected survey data on five attitudinal domains, topic-specific knowledge, scientific reasoning abilities, and epistemological beliefs from N = 303 participants before and after they participated in a CS project on urban wildlife ecology. Participants collected and analyzed data on terrestrial mammals in a German metropolitan city. Our results provide evidence for the relationship between knowledge and attitudes due to the topic-specificity of knowledge in CS projects (e.g., wildlife ecology). Our method provided a rigorous assessment of the direction of the knowledge–attitude relationship and showed that topic-specific knowledge was a predictor of more positive attitudes toward science. © 2021 The Authors. Journal of Research in Science Teaching published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of National Association for Research in Science Teaching

The framework dikolan (Digital competencies for teaching in science education) as basis for the self-assessment tool dikolan-grid

For the planning and implementation of lessons with digital technologies, a subject-specific technology-related professional competence of teachers is of central importance. However, the competency frameworks developed so far remain in a general perspective and do not explicitly address subject-specific issues. Furthermore, digital competencies are predominantly measured with subject-unspecific self-assessment instruments, as subject-specific operationalizations for this area are not yet available in a differentiated form. In this article, the framework for Digital Competencies for Teaching in Science Education (DiKoLAN), a subject-specific framework for pre-service science teachers, is introduced, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, first results of a self-assessment tool based on the framework are described. DiKoLAN defines competency areas highly specific to science, as well as more general competency areas that include aspects common to all subjects. Each competency area is described by competency expectations, which, in turn, are structured with reference to the four technology-related dimensions of the TPACK framework (i.e., Technological and Pedagogical Content Knowledge) and three levels of performance (Name, Describe, Use/Apply). Derived from DiKoLAN, a corresponding self-assessment instrument (DiKoLAN-Grid) was developed and empirically tested for the two competency areas, (n = 118) and Information Search and Evaluation (n = 90), in biology student teachers. By means of path models, tendencies regarding structural correlations of the four components Special Tools (TK), Content-specific Context (TCK), Methods and Digitality (TPK), and Teaching (TPACK) are presented for both competency areas and discussed, as well as in comparison to previously conducted, subject-unspecific surveys. © 2021, MDPI. All rights reserved