Effects of pre-service teachers’ collaboration on children’s competencies and motivation in (non-)inclusive primary school science lessons

ABSTRACT

Teachers’ collaboration is an important prerequisite for children’s academic achievement in inclusive education. There are various challenges in teacher collaboration, with one being difficult personal relationships. Studies on the role of the team composition for children’s competence and motivational development in (non-)inclusive education are still missing. Thus, we investigated children’s competence development depending on a variation of the team composition. In our study, N = 142 pre-service primary school teachers and pre-service special needs teachers were assigned to one of our study groups. Half of the pre-service teachers could choose their tandem partners and the other half was randomly arranged in pairs. Pre-service teacher tandems planned science lessons and collaboratively taught groups of children in regular or in inclusive settings. On the basis of pre- and post-questionnaires, we investigated N = 804 children’s competence and motivational development. Children who were taught by pre-service teachers in freely selected teams showed significant knowledge growth in a test on the subject of renewable energies compared to children who were taught by pre-service teachers in not freely selected teams. The setting (inclusive versus regular) had no significant impact on this effect. Significant differences between the study groups could not be proven concerning children’s motivation.

KEYWORDS:

• Team-teaching
• pre-service teachers
• inclusive education
• science learning
• primary school
• competence
• motivation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research under the project number 01NV1722.

Notes on contributors

Frank Hellmich

Frank Hellmich is a professor for primary school education at the Institute of Educational Research at Paderborn University (Germany). His area of expertise is inclusive education in primary school, especially the development and evaluation of pre-service teachers’ training programmes for inclusive education and prerequisites for primary school students’ social participation in the inclusive classroom.

Fabian Hoya

Fabian Hoya is a research assistant at the Institute of Educational Research at Paderborn University (Germany). In his PhD thesis, he investigated the role of primary school teachers’ feedback for children’s reading processes. His research interests are related to designing inclusive learning processes in primary schools.

Jan Roland Schulze

Jan Roland Schulze is a research assistant at the Institute of Educational Research at Paderborn University (Germany). Currently, he contributes to the project ‘Pre-service teachers’ collaboration in connection with their qualifications for designing learning processes for inclusive science learning in primary schools’, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

Eva Blumberg

Eva Blumberg is a professor for primary school science education in the Department of Physics at Paderborn University (Germany). Her areas of research are inclusive science education in primary schools and the promotion of primary school students’ performance-related personal development in primary school science lessons.