Didactics of Social Sciences with a focus on Empirical Political Didactics

Empirical teaching-learning research in political science teaching
The professorship is dedicated to empirical teaching-learning research in the field of civic education in schools. The concept of civic education is broadly defined, i.e., economic and social perspectives are to be taken into account in addition to political ones. Traditionally, the comparatively young discipline of political didactics (from about 1960) has seen itself as a theory of educational content. Today, this normative orientation is complemented by the empirical-analytical approach. The overarching goal of the professorship is to generate action-relevant findings for the design of high-quality political education. This requires theories and models for political education that are based on the psychology of teaching and learning and that are subjected to empirical testing.

Subject-specific competence modeling and test construction
The modeling of subject-specific competencies and the associated development of suitable test instruments is an important area of research in subject didactics. Valid measurement instruments are of great importance for an evidence-based evaluation of learning processes. In political didactics research, however, there is a desideratum of appropriate instruments, especially in the field of teacher education. Therefore, this task represents the second research focus of the professorship. The current focus is on the investigation of the development of professional knowledge of student teachers of social sciences in the course of the university phase of teacher education. In addition, correlations between professional knowledge and other factors relevant to the profession (for example, motivational characteristics) are of interest.