Thematic Teaching and Flexible Examination of German at University Level, Report on a pilot study of new learning environments for first-semester students

Abstract

The aim of this qualitative study of an educational project on new teaching and examination methods of German at university level is to describe in detail the data collection and the analyses made. There is also a brief explanation of the basic assumptions behind the project. These assumptions are partly related to educational theories about deep learning and problem based learning, partly to previous research. The project was based on three research questions, formulated in an open way. It sought to discover if a curriculum based on thematic teaching combined with flexible methods of examination (as regards form, content, and progression), would promote not only student motivation but also improve standards of achievement. In order to estimate the effects of the new first semester programme in an unbiased way its success is compared with similar data from a traditional first semester programme at the same department. These data comprise several questionnaires and two language tests. In the questionnaires, students were, among other things, about their motivation and in the language tests, their written proficiency was measured. The comparison of data should not be seen as an attempt at verifying the success of the educational project in a strictly scientific sense. There are too many variables at play which limit the precision of the results. The most important variable is the rather restricted data collection from two student groups that are not exactly comparable. Furthermore, the outcome of the project might have been somewhat different had some of the attempted changes been more successful when put into practise. As regards written language proficiency, it also seems questionable whether results from a translation test are a valid measurement of written proficiency in German. Nevertheless, the following is indicative of the project having achieved a certain degree of success: The answers given in the questionnaires indicate that the new learning environments created by the educational project indeed helped to strengthen student motivation. The comparison also shows that the dropout and failure rates were somewhat lower in the pilot group (ca. 5%). As regards the average results in a translation test, there are no differences between the groups. Due to the character of the data analysed, the author is careful not to over interpret the results. Thus, it is shown that the two positive effects reported on could partly also be due to determinants lying outside the educational project. As for the generalisation of these research results, it is for the reader to decide whether they may be applied generally to new situations.