2019-2023 VAMPS Project (DFG)

Application consortium and employees

This project is led by an application consortium from the working group Subject Education and Language Subject Education and Language (AG FuS). It consists of: Prof. Dr. Dominik Leiß, university professor for mathematics education, Prof. Dr. Knut Schwippert, university professor for empirical educational research, Prof. Dr. Timo Ehmke, university professor for educational science, Prof. Dr. Lena Heine, university professor for language education and multilingualism, and Prof. Dr. Dietmar Höttecke, university professor for physics education. In addition, Carina von der Geest, Kendra Zilz (both University of Hamburg), and Lena Dammann (Leuphana Lüneburg) are active as scientific collaborators in the project.

Topic and Objectives

Performance tasks in mathematical-scientific subject teaching are central to diagnosing and evaluating students' specialist competences and to providing feedback that promotes learning. The successful completion of written performance tasks, however, requires both cognitive and linguistic skills. The latter are particularly crucial in order to activate a mental model and situational foreknowledge in the process of solving a particular tasks. However, it remains unclear to what extent the linguistic requirements of the performance tasks influence their empirical difficulty and how linguistic and cognitive-technical task characteristics interact with each other. The aim of this study is therefore to investigate in an experimental design the influence of cognitive and linguistic requirements of performance tasks in the domains of mathematics and physics on empirical difficulty. In addition to the main effects, interaction effects are also examined and analysed, whether and, if so, which personal characteristics (e.g. technical and linguistic abilities) moderate the empirical task difficulty. On the basis of the results, knowledge for mathematics and science teaching and assessment can be derived on how performance tasks are to be designed in order to achieve a professionally objective, reliable and valid performance diagnosis.

Publications:

Schwippert, K., Zilz, K., & Höttecke, D. (2024). Difficulty-Generating Features of Text-based Physics Tasks. Journal of Research in Science, Mathematics and Technology Education. https://doi.org/10.31756/jrsmte.721