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In the future, learning will be essentially characterized by the ability to regulate the learning process and monitor success independently from a teacher. The technical possibilities offer better access to learning contents, precise and more individualized feedback, and learning phases adapted precisely to the needs of the learner in terms of scope and pace. In this study, we investigate an important aspect of the digitization of teaching/learning processes using the example of laboratory scripts for chemistry students at university. The focus is on looking up terms and concepts in preparation for the lab internships, firstly in a paper-based glossary and secondly in a digital glossary. During a two-day study, a total of 16 students prepared for experiments on two topics with completely identical materials. We then studied the influence of content knowledge, motivation, and cognitive load. While all students show significant learning achievements, there are no significant differences between the groups. Furthermore, results show that pure digitization of information has no effect, despite the theoretically assumed advantages.

The way medical students learn anatomy is constantly evolving. Nowadays, technologies such as tablets support established learning methods like drawing. In this study, the effect of drawing on a tablet on medical students' anatomy learning was investigated compared to drawing or summarizing on paper. The quality of drawings or summaries was assessed as a measure of the quality of strategy implementation. Learning outcome was measured with an anatomy test, both immediately afterward and after 4-6 weeks to assess its sustainability. There were no significant group differences in learning outcome at both measurement points. For all groups, there was a significant medium strength correlation between the quality of the drawings or summaries and the learning outcome (p < 0.05). Further analysis revealed that the quality of strategy implementation moderated outcomes in the delayed test: When poorly implemented, drawing on a tablet (M = 48.81) was associated with lower learning outcome than drawing on paper (M = 58.95); The latter (M = 58.89) was related to higher learning outcome than writing summaries (M = 45.59). In case of high-quality strategy implementation, drawing on a tablet (M = 60.98) outperformed drawing on paper (M = 52.67), which in turn was outperformed by writing summaries (M = 62.62). To conclude, drawing on a tablet serves as a viable alternative to paper-based methods for learning anatomy if students can make adequate use of this strategy. Future research needs to identify how to support student drawing, for instance, by offering scaffolds with adaptive feedback to enhance learning.

We analyze the role of institutional founding conditions and institutional legacy for universities' self-representation in terms of diversity. Based on 374 universities located in the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Poland, we can differentiate between a more idealistic understanding (logic of inclusion and equality) and a more market-oriented understanding (market logic) of diversity. Our findings show that the founding phase has no significant effect on the likelihood of a university focusing on a market-oriented understanding of diversity--however, we observe an imprinting effect with respect to the adoption of a diversity statement in general and an equity-oriented statement. Moreover, our findings show that there is a socialistic heritage for universities in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries that is at work and still influences universities' understandings of diversity today.

Since the implementation of the Excellence Initiative and the Excellence Strategy, German higher education institutions have been restructuring university governance, especially those selected as Universities of Excellence. This study uses a holistic and mission-related integrated governance approach to conduct a qualitative analysis of the governance transformation of German Universities of Excellence, aiming to provoke discussion on transforming governance to optimize organizational effectiveness and sustainable development of German higher education institutions. Transforming governance of German Universities of Excellence involves mission statements, strategic goals, institutional strategies, research, teaching, the third mission, internationalization, global engagement, governance relationships and structures, institutional leadership, funding, autonomy, innovation, digital transformation, quality assurance, and sustainable development, aiming to enhance accountability, performativity, transparency, openness and organizational effectiveness with efficient administrative management in alignment with institutional missions, vision, core values, and strategic goals.

This paper presents a modified approach to subject-matter didactics, in which the focus is not on the content itself, but on the students' view of the content. The introduction deals with an overview of subject-matter didactics and the notion of beliefs used in this paper. The main portion of the paper deals with presenting the concepts of a book and a seminar based on the student-centered subject-matter didactics approach. For the first qualitative evaluation, selected reflections of students are analyzed. Finally, initial findings are summarized and an outlook is provided.

Paper-based visual analogue scale (VAS) items were developed 100 years ago. Although they gained great popularity in clinical and medical research for assessing pain, they have been scarcely applied in other areas of psychological research for several decades. However, since the beginning of digitization, VAS have attracted growing interest among researchers for carrying out computerized and paper-based data assessments. In the present study, we investigated the research question "Which different design characteristics of paper-based VAS items are preferred by women and men?" Based on a sample of 115 participants (68 female), our results revealed that the respondents preferred a paper-based VAS item with a horizontal, 8-cm long, 3 DTP ("desktop publishing point") wide, black line, with flat line endpoints, and the ascending numerical anchors "0" and "10", both for women and men. Although we did not identify any gender difference in these characteristics, our findings uncovered clear preferences on how to design paper-based VAS items.

Introduction: We report an investigation on collaboration practices in research papers published in the most prestigious English-medium astrophysics journals. Method: We propose an evaluation method based on three numerical indicators to study and compare, in absolute terms, three different types of collaboration (international, national and local) and authors' mobility on the basis of co-authorship. Analysis: We analysed 300 randomly selected research papers in three different time periods and used the student's t-test to determine whether the paired two-sample differences observed were statistically significant or not. Results: International collaboration is more common than national and local collaboration. International, national and local authors' mobility and intra-national collaboration do not seriously affect the indicators of the principal levels of collaboration. International collaboration and authors' mobility are more relevant for authors publishing in European journals, whereas national and intra-national collaboration and national mobility are more important for authors publishing in US journals. Conclusions: We explain the observed differences and patterns in terms of the specific scope of each journal and the socio-economic and political situation in both geographic contexts (Europe and the USA). Our study provides a global picture of collaboration practices in astrophysics and its possible application to many other sciences and fields would undoubtedly help bring into focus the really big issues for overall research management and policy.

Involving the global issues as listed in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in education is necessarily done in the education process, especially in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning. Exposure to global issues is known to improve students' understanding, awareness, and ability to solve urgent issues faced by global society. This paper aims to find out the trend of research on the coverage of SDGs in students' learning process. This systematic literature analysis was done by applying Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Method. A total of 25 studies were recognized through a systematic search by using Sustainability, SDGs, and EFL as keywords. The result shows that the trend of associating SDGs with EFL settings was done mostly in Indonesia. In the recent year 2022, it reached the highest number of studies in the particular matter with 7 total of research. It was also found that the study involving SDGs on EFL learning was mostly done in the tertiary setting, compared with K-12, junior high school, secondary, high school, and other educational institutions. It was also discovered that the specific area of study enhances EFL students' learning achievement, environmental awareness, global citizen values, as well as students' levels of self-norms, beliefs, and self-value.

This paper explores ways to integrate social justice issues pertaining to decolonization and anti-racism into the world language classroom at all levels of instruction. It describes tasks designed to introduce language learners briefly to German colonialism, raise awareness of colonial legacies in contemporary German-speaking societies, and familiarize students with current decolonization initiatives. By engaging students with the complex diversity of German-speaking societies, the tasks provide examples for diversifying and decolonizing the language curriculum while fostering collaboration, critical thinking, and transcultural sensitivity. The examples highlight approaches to anti-racist pedagogies and ways of incorporating social justice practices across all levels of instruction and applicable to all languages.

This article presents a possible framework for the cooperation of mathematics and physics education research domains. Moreover, the potential topics for such a scientific collaboration are explained by means of a structuring qualitative content analysis of current handbooks and conference proceedings in Germany and Vietnam. These topics can form a basis for further projects on the connection of subject-related didactics. One of these projects is an interdisciplinary course in teacher training at the Hanoi National University of Education (HNUE) as part of the Inter TeTra project between the HNUE and the University of Siegen.

The topic of "teacher professionalism" is one of the most crucial ones in quality education research. It has a potential to generate results that could inform and hence enhance the practice in classrooms. Thus, research in this field needs reliable instruments to measure the professional knowledge of our teachers to be able to generate reliable results for our research problems. Not many instruments have been developed with regard to this topic. At the same time, an adequate validation of the instrument developed is often missing (Schilling & Hill, 2007). Hence, in a bigger project "ProwiN" (German acronym for professional knowledge of science teachers), test instruments for measuring science teachers' pedagogical, pedagogical content and content knowledge (PK, PCK, and CK) were developed for the subjects biology, chemistry and physics. The present study tested the validity of some of these items which were used to measure the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of biology teachers. These items focused on measuring teachers' professional knowledge by analyzing 1) teachers' "knowledge about student understanding" (or lack of understanding) of several topics in biology and 2) "knowledge about instructional strategies" like the use of models or experiments. The content validity of these instruments was examined by think-aloud interviews with American and German Biology teachers (N = 11). This study shows a high content validity for these items. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates the scope for adapting the conceptual framework of these items to measure biology teachers' PCK in other countries.

Purpose: The purpose of this case report is to: (1) to describe outputs of a change project at Muenster University of Applied Sciences (Germany), which targeted its "operational core" of professors and (2) on this basis to derive ideas on how to ensure a high level of pervasion of change projects in the higher education sector. Design/methodology/approach: The author compiled data on the extent to which the project has penetrated the organisation derived from the project documentation, discusses satisfaction with the level of pervasion and presents four approaches to increase the level of organisational pervasion for similar projects. These were developed in introspective observations by the project team during project execution (2011-2021). Findings: The level of pervasion achieved by the project was judged to be satisfactory overall, but in principle still capable of being increased, as there are clear differences between subject disciplines. Four approaches to increase the level of pervasion are derived: (1) explicit attention to and monitoring of informal structures, (2) use of milieu-specific segmentation techniques of target groups, (3) variations of the way change objectives are presented within the organisation and (4) a dynamisation of stakeholder management. Practical implications: The paper offers guidance to change managers in higher education institutions on how to improve the planning phase of change projects. It is essential for change projects to achieve their intended outcome (project outcome) that the organisation is sufficiently pervaded in quantitative terms (project outputs). The recommendations presented in this paper should be of interest to all higher education staff involved in change management, as they can help to increase the level of organisational pervasion. Originality/value: Although Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are considered to be a type of organisation that is difficult to change, change projects are an integral part of their management practice, follow one another at an increasing pace and are often being driven forward in a network of several parallel projects. This paper presents recommendations to increase the success of change projects in HEIs. In summary, the recommendations suggest breaking down organisation-wide change projects to the organisational meso level.

This paper outlines how digital technologies support innovation in teaching and learning the English language across Palestinian Higher Education Institutes. A European project collaborated to build staff capacity in knowledge and skills, shown here through the redesign of curricula, pedagogical training, the design and implementation of interactive textbooks, the creation of language labs, helping to develop expertise in creating and utilising Open Educational Resources (OER) and significantly, the development of individual agency as a form of OER. In this paper, we draw on three years of data to present a model for teacher innovation showing how digital innovation is firstly "personal at a practitioner level" and shaped by need, before becoming driven by "collaboration at an organisational level" with like-minded colleagues. Shared practice at this level can lead to community discourse through practitioner networks, which in turn can lead to dialogue initiating instances of "organisational change". This resonates with literature which shows innovation has three outcomes: "originality" (practitioner-based agency); "scale" (going beyond the site of creation) and "value" (how this produces benefits for others). We perceive that the resulting capacity-building extends beyond the redesign of curricula mentioned to professional enrichment, collegiality through cascading innovation to other areas, and enhanced practitioner agency.

Purpose: This paper aims to ask how the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) has orchestrated a sustainable development (SD) agenda in its international policy since 2020. Design/methodology/approach: By drawing on theoretical ideas around policy orchestration as a key UN governing strategy and applying them to the analysis of the progression of the SD agenda in the EHEA, the paper conducts a thematic analysis of six recent key EHEA international policy documents and 19 interviews with key Bologna stakeholders in France, Germany and Italy. Findings: The resultant analysis uncovers three overarching key themes that show the EHEA has the capacity to mitigate pitfalls in the UN's SD agenda; some weaknesses of the UN's orchestration of SD are translated into weaknesses in the EHEA's formulation of its SD agenda; and the further development of an SD agenda as an essential direction of EHEA's work. The paper then goes on to discuss how EHEA policies only mention SD discourse, omit concrete plans for its implementation and keep the very meaning of SD ambiguous throughout international policy documents. Originality/value: The authors offer three original recommendations that the EHEA should adopt in an attempt to mitigate the issues raised in the run-up to its 2030 deadline for implementing its policies--the EHEA should develop an explicit definition of SD; recognise the Euro-centredness of EHEA policies and open them up to other voices; and cite academic research when developing policy documents.

The purpose, aim and goals of higher education itself have been discussed and researched in the context of massified and marketised higher education in Germany, with a focus mainly on higher education national policies or the view of faculty staff. By shifting the perspective instead to the students, this article asks what higher education means to them nowadays. This study is based on 95 interviews with German graduate students from three disciplines (i.e. business administration/management, medicine and musicology) and it offers a typology of what students understand as the purpose of higher education. Six types were reconstructed from the empirical material, along three main lines of higher education's purpose (i.e. occupational, personal and societal). This paper also shows how the chosen discipline becomes more salient for the student's perception of higher education purpose than their social background. This questions previous research that found strong ties between instrumentalism and social background in higher education. This paper also demonstrates that social differences do matter in their egalitarian or elitist variation of understanding within non-instrumentalist types. Overall, this study illustrates how heterogenous contemporary higher education purpose has become, which mirrors a further general differentiation in higher education.

In German primary schools, natural sciences and social studies are learned and taught in an integrative manner within a subject called Sachunterricht. To teach Sachunterricht in a high-quality manner, it is reasonable to assume that primary school teachers themselves require-- among other things, such as knowledge about pedagogy, teaching Sachunterricht, and the various content areas of Sachunterricht--a distinct interest, academic self-concept, and sense of belonging regarding natural and social sciences. Furthermore, they should possess a solid interdisciplinary competence that enables them to teach natural and social sciences in an integrative way. In the present study, we conducted a longitudinal survey of pre-service primary school teachers from a German university over a period of 2 years to investigate the changes in their (self-evaluated) interdisciplinary competence; the changes in their interest, academic self-concept, and sense of belonging regarding natural and social sciences; and the correlations between these constructs. Our data analysis revealed a decrease over time in participants' sense of belonging to natural and social sciences, as well as their (self-evaluated) interdisciplinary competence, while their academic self-concept in natural and social sciences remained stable. Participants' interest in social sciences decreased, while their interest in natural sciences increased. Moreover, we found varying degrees of correlation between these constructs. In summary, the results of the present study provide important insights into the professional development of pre-service primary school teachers within university-based teacher education for teaching natural and social sciences in primary school. The implications of these findings are discussed in detail at the end of this paper.

Intercultural Perspectives on Information Literacy and Metaliteracy (IPILM) is a discourseoriented learning environment that engages students from diverse cultural backgrounds to participate in collaborative knowledge construction. The objective is to evolve a thematic approach to course design that includes elements of open pedagogy, information literacy, and metaliteracy. IPILM invites participation from educators and learners from around the world and has witnessed an increase in participating countries. This paper describes the concept of IPILM and demonstrates the implementation of this approach in practice. The initiative was well received by students and is both feasible and sustainable as an intercultural learning endeavor. IPILM is an ongoing project and a work in progress that is an adaptable model which may be transferred to disparate fields of teaching and learning or adopted by international communities of instructors.

Although statistical literacy has become a key competence in today's data-driven society, it is usually not a part of statistics education. To address this issue, we propose an innovative concept for a conference-like seminar on the topic of statistical literacy. This seminar draws attention to the relevance and importance of statistical literacy, and moreover, students are made aware of the process of science communication and are introduced to the peer review process for the assessment of scientific papers. In the summer term 2020, the seminar was conducted as a joint project by the University of Hamburg, the University of Muenster, and the Joachim Herz Foundation. In this article, we present the concept of the seminar and our experience with this concept in the summer term 2020.

This paper discusses the conception of a joint intercultural students' research program of one German and two Kyrgyzstani teachers and students from the Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg (Germany) and the American University of Central Asia (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan). The paper conceptualizes such a research training program and gives reference to qualitative methods teaching in the two corresponding universities. What follows is a description of the chosen research topic: "The 'Intersections' of Gender, Family, and Society in Kyrgyzstan" and the course program. With different academic cultures concerning research ethics in the Anglo-Saxon and continental European contexts, a challenge for such a program will be addressed. A short review of the research results of the different students' teams is provided, and the paper is finalized with a self-reflection upon such a joint intercultural undertaking.

Teachers' professional knowledge is assumed to be a key variable for effective teaching. As teacher education has the goal to enhance professional knowledge of current and future teachers, this knowledge should be described and assessed. Nevertheless, only a limited number of studies quantitatively measures physics teachers' professional knowledge. The study reported in this paper was part of a bigger project with the broader goal of understanding teacher professional knowledge. We designed a test instrument to assess the professional knowledge of physics teachers (N = 186) in the dimensions of "content knowledge" (CK), "pedagogical content knowledge" (PCK), and "pedagogical knowledge" (PK). A model describing the relationships between these three dimensions of professional knowledge was created to inform the design of the tests used to measure CK, PCK, and PK. In this paper, we describe the model with particular emphasis on the PCK part, and the subsequent PCK test development and its implementation in detail. We report different approaches to evaluate the PCK test, including the description of content validity, the examination of the internal structure of professional knowledge, and the analysis of construct validity by testing teachers across different school subjects, teachers from different school types, pre-service teachers, and physicists. Our findings demonstrate that our PCK test results could distinguish physics teachers from the other groups tested. The PCK test results could not be explained by teachers' CK or PK, cognitive abilities, computational skills, or science knowledge.