Content-related solution quality in invention activities and worked solutions – promoting the professional vision of classroom management

Abstract

Invention activities and worked solutions are considered to be effective learning tasks. To date, limited research has been conducted regarding these tasks in teacher education and the process of solving these tasks. This study focuses on the solution quality of student teachers’ task solutions. 149 students were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: invention activity and worked solution. The latter group were given a set of categories; the former group had to invent their own categories to compare two constructed contrasting auditive cases with a focus on the subject classroom management. To determine whether it is more effective to compare cases with given categories (worked solution) or with self-generated categories (invention activity), we coded the 149 solutions regarding the content-related solution quality using qualitative content analysis. Students in the worked solution condition demonstrated a significantly higher content-related solution quality than those in the invention activity condition. Thus, it may be assumed that students of the worked solution gained a better conceptual understanding of classroom management through working on this task. Implications for the use of this task format in teacher education are discussed.