Abstract
As teacher training plays a major role in the development of (prospective) teachers’ knowledge, differences between the professional knowledge of prospective teachers at Austrian and German universities were examined in the current study. The teacher training systems of business and economic education in both countries differ substantially regarding structure and content. The German system consists of two consecutive phases with different foci (university education with an emphasis on theories and domain-specific knowledge, followed by school-based practical training with the objective of acquiring practical experience). Thus, in Germany, opportunities to learn (OTL) mainly cover domain-specific knowledge with less focus on didactics and teaching experience. In contrast, Austrian universities offer an integrated approach that combines the two phases (i.e., theoretical input and practical teaching experiences are closely linked) at the university level. A paper-and-pencil test was used to measure content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in the domain of accounting of prospective teachers in Germany and Austria. The total sample consists of n = 1,401 prospective teachers from German and Austrian universities. Taking the structural differences in teacher education into account, differences in CK and PCK between German and Austrian prospective teachers were expected. Accordingly, the results show that the Austrian sample outperformed the German one. In addition, for both the German and the Austrian sample, university-based OTL in accounting had a crucial impact on the CK score. Concerning PCK, however, the situation is different: none of the university-based OTL had an impact on Austrian prospective teachers’ PCK, and only small effects were found for the German sample. Possible reasons for the unexpected findings are discussed.
Highlights
As teacher training plays a major role in the development of teachers’ knowledge, differences between the professional knowledge of prospective teachers at Austrian and German universities were examined in the current study
We focus on the following two research questions: 1. Do prospective teachers at Austrian and German universities differ in terms of their content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)? As the results from teacher effectiveness research show that opportunities to learn (OTL) affect CK and PCK, and as prospective teachers at Austrian universities – in general – have more OTL during teacher education, it can be assumed that prospective teachers at Austrian universities outperform their German counterparts with regard to CK and PCK. a) Impact of cross-country differences in teacher training on the development of CK
Prospective teachers studying at Austrian universities have a CK-score of 0.89 and a PCK-score of 0.17
Summary
As teacher training plays a major role in the development of (prospective) teachers’ knowledge, differences between the professional knowledge of prospective teachers at Austrian and German universities were examined in the current study. The German system consists of two consecutive phases with different foci (university education with an emphasis on theories and domain-specific knowledge, followed by school-based practical training with the objective of acquiring practical experience). In Germany, opportunities to learn (OTL) mainly cover domain-specific knowledge with less focus on didactics and teaching experience. It is assumed that teachers’ competencies (e.g., choosing appropriate representations and explanations or providing challenging tasks) have a crucial impact on students’ learning processes (Hattie 2009; Kunter et al 2013; Fritsch et al Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training (2015) 7:4. Domainspecific models of teachers’ competencies, as well as competence measurement instruments are still lacking (Blömeke et al 2013; Schmelzing et al 2013)
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