Swiss Schools Research Articles

Linking School Culture to Successful Curriculum Reform

This study focused on the connection between organisational school culture and the success of curriculum reform. Utilizing a sample of 348 teachers in 25 Swiss schools, we investigated how different school culture types correlate with teachers’ perceived success of the current process of implementing the “Media and Information Literacy” curriculum. We found that the school culture type Clan is the most dominant across the schools and found a negative connection between the school culture type Hierarchy and teachers’ perceived reform success. An exploratory cluster analysis was used to identify further profiles of school culture that were not based on the dominant culture but were determined based on the distribution of mean values. Two other profiles were identified in a further procedure: Collegial Associates and Competitive Organisations. These results thus fill a gap in the previous research on school culture that had particularly set out to identify the dominant school culture. Based on the results, we cannot only confirm the validity of the Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument for Swiss schools but also give indications as to which characteristics of school culture types are hindering the perceived success of curriculum reforms from the teachers’ points of view.

Associations between Social Competence, Perceived Parents’ Prosocial Educational Goals and Adolescents’ Hate Speech Perpetration in School

ABSTRACT Hate speech is a global challenge, requiring research on adolescents’ hate speech perpetration in schools. We examined whether perceived parents’ prosocial educational goals moderate the association between social competencies (social perspective-taking, openness to diversity) and hate speech perpetration in schools. In total, 1,719 adolescents (aged 11–18 years) from 22 Swiss schools completed selfreport questionnaires (December 2020 to April 2021). Social perspective-taking and hate speech perpetration correlated negatively, alongside openness to diversity and hate speech perpetration. Perceived parents’ prosocial educational goals strengthened the negative association between openness to diversity and hate speech perpetration in schools but did not moderate the association with social perspective-taking.

Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of Serious Gaming in the Field of Vocational Orientation

This study investigates the effectiveness of the serious game like2be, which has been developed to support the individual career orientation process of adolescents by broadening their occupational horizon. In this paper, we present results from an intervention study with n = 809 adolescents in Swiss schools at the lower secondary education level. To analyze the extent to which cognitive, affective, and motivational factors are stimulated and what influence they have on expanding knowledge about occupations (measured learning outcome), we applied confirmatory factor analysis, multiple linear regression, and a structural equation model. The results indicate that the stimulation of cognitive processes through serious gaming has a statistically significant impact on learning outcome, although such factors as enjoyment, flow experience, or self-perceived benefits in playing like2be did not significantly impact gain in knowledge about occupations.

Evaluation of a brief universal suicide prevention programme in young people: a cluster-controlled trial in Swiss schools

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in young people. Therefore, suicide prevention in this age group is a public health priority. There is increasing evidence of the efficacy of suicide prevention programmes, but robust empirical studies are still needed. More precisely, data are needed for school-aged children, brief interventions and distal outcomes such as psychological distress or suicidal thoughts. In addition, to our knowledge, no study has yet scientifically evaluated a brief universal suicide prevention programme in Switzerland. This study investigated the efficacy and acceptability of a brief universal suicide prevention programme for school-aged youths. Primary outcomes included knowledge on suicide, perceived suicide awareness and knowledge of help-seeking resources. Secondary outcomes included acceptability coping skills, suicide-related behaviours and psychological distress. This non-randomised cluster-controlled trial was conducted in Swiss schools. A 90-minute workshop for universal suicide prevention was delivered to the intervention group (n = 209), and the control group had no intervention (n = 96). Measures were assessed at baseline and after one month. Acceptability was assessed at follow-up in the intervention group only. Data were analysed using three-level mixed effect models with an interaction term between group and time. There were interaction effects between group and time for most outcomes: perceived suicide awareness (p <0.010), knowledge of help-seeking resources (p <0.001), coping planning (p = 0.039), suicidal ideation (p = 0.019) and psychological distress (p = 0.012). There were no interaction effects on suicide-related knowledge (p = 0.312) and coping for social support (p >0.388). Participants found the workshop enjoyable, not upsetting, and worthwhile. This study suggested that a brief suicide prevention programme could be beneficial and safe for school-aged youths. This brief programme may contribute to suicide prevention efforts.

Implementation of technology-supported personalized learning—its impact on instructional quality

Digital technology especially raised hopes to open up new possibilities to personalize learning. Although various schools have implemented approaches of technology-supported personalized learning, the impact on instructional quality remains unclear. As a common definition of the multilayered construct personalized learning is lacking, our study focuses on two theoretical dimensions of technology-supported personalized learning to investigate the impact on instructional quality. For this purpose, our study has analyzed data from a survey of N = 860 students (8th grade) from 31 Swiss schools with personalized learning concepts. Results show that student-centered teaching methods in the context of technology-supported personalized learning stimulate the cognitive activation of the students, and the supportive climate increases slightly with a higher degree of students’ voice and choice on the computer.

A public health strategy for SARS-CoV-2, grounded in science, should guide Swiss schools through the coming winter

A public health strategy for SARS-CoV-2, grounded in science, should guide Swiss schools through the coming winter

Recommendations on screen time, sleep and physical activity: associations with academic achievement in Swiss adolescents

ObjectivesThis study aimed to investigate how meeting international recommendations for screen time (<2 h/day), moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA; at least 60 min/day) and sleep (8–10 h/night), as well as media multitasking (MMI) as a form of screen time, impact academic achievement in early adolescence. Study designA prospective design was used, where self-report measures were collected during the spring semester and academic achievement at the end of the school year. MethodsA total of 1208 grade 3 middle school students (Mage = 13.55 years, SDage = 0.60) in 37 Swiss schools filled out a paper-and-pencil questionnaire including measures of screen time (covering watching television, playing video games, Internet use, smartphone use and social media use), MMI, sleep time and time for MVPA. To evaluate academic achievement, end-term grades were provided by the collaborating education administration for Italian, Maths, Science, History, Geography, Music and Visual arts. ResultsAfter adjustment for covariates, such as gender, socio-economic status, body mass index and stressful life events, multivariate linear mixed-effect models, nesting participants in schools, showed that meeting recommendations for screen time (B = 0.12, β = 0.105, P < 0.001) and MVPA (B = 0.09, β = 0.09, P = 0.001), but not sleep (B = 0.05, P = 0.087), were associated with higher academic achievement. Considering the number of recommendations met, meeting all three recommendations improved academic achievement the most (B = 0.24, β = 0.21, P < 0.001), followed by meeting the guidelines for screen time + MVPA (B = 0.20, β = 0.15, P < 0.001) and for screen time + sleep (B = 0.21, β = 0.13, P < 0.001). In the fully adjusted model, multitasking with two or more media was related to a worse academic achievement. ConclusionsScreen time (including MMI), sleep and MVPA impact academic achievement in adolescence; hence, governmental organisations and schools should raise awareness about the positive and negative effects of following or not recommendations for MVPA, sleep and screen time among adolescents and their parents. In addition, support should be provided to promote sufficient sleep and MVPA while limiting overall screen time and parallel device use.

From spontaneous to strategic natural window ventilation: Improving indoor air quality in Swiss schools.

Natural window ventilation is frequently employed in schools in Europe and often leads to inadequate levels of human bioeffluents. However, intervention studies that verify whether recommended ventilation targets can be achieved in practice with reasonable ventilation regimes and that are also suitable for countries with cold winters are practically non-existent. To explore the initial situation in Switzerland we carried out carbon dioxide (CO2) measurements during the winter in 100 classrooms, most of which (94%) had natural window ventilation. In more than two thirds of those, the hygienic limit value of 2000ppm specified for CO2 in the Swiss Standard SN 520180 (2014) was exceeded. To improve ventilation behavior, an intervention was implemented in 23 classrooms during the heating season. Ventilation was performed exclusively during breaks (to avoid discomfort from cold and drafts), efficiently, and only for as long as was necessary to achieve the ventilation objective of compliance with the hygienic limit value (strategic ventilation). The intervention included verbal and written instructions, awareness-raising via a school lesson and an interactive tool for students, which was also used to estimate the required duration of ventilation. CO2 exposure was significantly reduced in pilot classes (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p=3.815e-06). Median CO2 levels decreased from 1600ppm (control group) to 1097ppm (intervention group), and the average proportion of teaching time at 400-1400ppm CO2 increased from 40% to 70%. The duration of ventilation was similar to spontaneous natural window ventilation (+5.8%). Stricter ventilation targets are possible. The concept of the intervention is suitable for immediate adoption in schools with natural window ventilation for a limited period, pending the installation of a mechanical ventilation system. The easy integration of this intervention into everyday school life promotes compliance, which is particularly important during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ПСИХИАТРИЧЕСКИЙ ПАЦИЕНТ КАК ХУДОЖНИК: ФОРМИРОВАНИЕ ДИСКУРСА АУТСАЙДЕРСКОГО ИСКУССТВА В ПЕРВОЙ ЧЕТВЕРТИ ХХ ВЕКА

The author of the article studies the discourse of outsider art and refers to the beginning of its formation: the phenomenon of the art of the mentally ill, which is delineated and legitimized at the early twentieth century. Following the conceptual apparatus of Michel Foucault, the surfaces of emergence and the authorities of delimitation of the art of outsiders (in the early stage of the art of the mentally ill) are initially marginal in relation to the field of art. Instead of traditional instances of art –critics, museums, art critics – in the case of the art of outsiders, the discourse of outsider art was formed by psychiatrists, philosophers, and leftist artists. The transformation of the traditional way of legitimizing the phenomena of art was largely due to the change in the philosophy of culture and, on the one hand, the emergence of the idea of Dionysian values, irrational in culture, on the other, with the emergence of the concepts of the unconscious and the designation of its meaning in the context of personality and culture. The latter has made the field of psychiatry valuable, and psychiatrists new levels of differentiation in culture and art. But it is important to note the cardinal changes that took place in psychiatry in the period of the turn of the XIX–XX century. Including as a result of the activities of the German and Swiss schools, psychiatry becomes complex, multi-component scientific knowledge, was striving to study various aspects of the human psyche. On the other hand, in Germany and Switzerland interest in the art of the mentally ill was formed largely as a result of the active influence of expressionist painting, literature and aesthetics and other avant-garde tendencies; all this sets the stage for significant success in understanding and evaluating the art of psychiatric patients. It is also important that the actual process of legitimizing the art of the mentally ill in the texts of Walter Morgenhalter and Hans Prinzhorn had gone through the using by psychiatrists of the description’s language and analysis’s logic of the indicated phenomena inherent in the contemporary critical art theory.

Cross-Cultural and Environmental Influences on Facial Emotional Discrimination Sensitivity in 9-Year-Old Children from Swiss and Vietnamese Schools

Abstract. The Other Race Effect (ORE), i.e., recognition facilitation for own-race faces, is a well-established phenomenon with broad evidence in adults and infants. Nevertheless, the ORE in older children is poorly understood, and even less so for emotional face processing. This research samples 87 9-year-old children from Vietnamese and Swiss schools. In two separate studies, we evaluated the children’s abilities to perceive the disappearance of emotions in Asian and Caucasian faces in an offset task. The first study evaluated an “emotional ORE” in Vietnamese-Asian, Swiss-Caucasian, and Swiss-Multicultural children. Offset times showed an emotional ORE in Vietnamese-Asian children living in an ethnically homogeneous environment, whereas mixed ethnicities in Swiss children seem to have balanced performance between face types. The second study compared socioemotionally trained versus untrained Vietnamese-Asian children. Vietnamese children showed a strong emotional ORE and tend to increase their sensitivity to emotion offset after training. Moreover, an effect of emotion consistent with previous observation in adults could suggest a cultural sensitivity to disapproval signs. Taken together, the results suggest that 9-year-old children can present an emotional ORE, but that a heterogeneous environment or an emotional training could strengthen face-processing abilities without reducing skills on their own-group.

Impact of an e-learning module on personal protective equipment knowledge in student paramedics: a randomized controlled trial

BackgroundPrehospital professionals such as emergency physicians or paramedics must be able to choose and adequately don and doff personal protective equipment (PPE) in order to avoid COVID-19 infection. Our aim was to evaluate the impact of a gamified e-learning module on adequacy of PPE in student paramedics.MethodsThis was a web-based, randomized 1:1, parallel-group, triple-blind controlled trial. Student paramedics from three Swiss schools were invited to participate. They were informed they would be presented with both an e-learning module and an abridged version of the current regional prehospital COVID-19 guidelines, albeit not in which order. After a set of 22 questions designed to assess baseline knowledge, the control group was shown the guidelines before answering a set of 14 post-intervention questions. The e-learning group was shown the gamified e-learning module right after the guidelines, and before answering post-intervention questions. The primary outcome was the difference in the percentage of adequate choices of PPE before and after the intervention.ResultsThe participation rate was of 71% (98/138). A total of 90 answer sets was analyzed. Adequate choice of PPE increased significantly both in the control (50% [33;83] vs 25% [25;50], P = .013) and in the e-learning group (67% [50;83] vs 25% [25;50], P = .001) following the intervention. Though the median of the difference was higher in the e-learning group, there was no statistically significant superiority over the control (33% [0;58] vs 17% [− 17;42], P = .087). The e-learning module was of greatest benefit in the subgroup of student paramedics who were actively working in an ambulance company (42% [8;58] vs 25% [− 17;42], P = 0.021). There was no significant effect in student paramedics who were not actively working in an ambulance service (0% [− 25;33] vs 17% [− 8;50], P = .584).ConclusionsThe use of a gamified e-learning module increases the rate of adequate choice of PPE only among student paramedics actively working in an ambulance service. In this subgroup, combining this teaching modality with other interventions might help spare PPE and efficiently protect against COVID-19 infection.

Occupational Therapy Practice in Mainstream Schools: Results from an Online Survey in Switzerland.

The shift towards inclusive education in many European countries has led to structural changes that affect both schools and their related professionals aiming to support children's participation. While most European countries acknowledge inclusive education and its need, serious challenges exist to its implementation at a national and local community level. Interdisciplinary collaboration, including health and educational professionals, is seen as an imperative key principle for inclusive education services. To learn about the occupational therapist's contribution to inclusive education, the aim of this study was to describe the state of the art of occupational therapists' collaboration and services delivery in Swiss schools. Using an exploratory, cross-sectional study design, a web-based survey was sent to 509 occupational therapists in Switzerland resulting in 302 responses for data analysis using descriptive statistics. Findings show that nearly all participants (97%) collaborate with schools, and 49% of participants provided direct services within a mainstream school setting. These services were mainly funded by health insurance and focused on physical and social environmental adaptations. Despite reported collaboration between occupational therapists and schools, this study shows a need for changes in federal health and education legislation as well as innovative solutions for service delivery in schools.

Does the use of educational technology in personalized learning environments correlate with self-reported digital skills and beliefs of secondary-school students?

In order to develop 21st-century skills, especially with respect to digital technologies, students are supposed to know how to use digital technologies for learning and problem solving. In recent years, approaches to personalized learning have been considered to be particularly promising in this regard. A clearly defined concept of personalized learning is still lacking, however. Rather, it serves an umbrella term for educational approaches that try to do justice to the individual abilities, knowledge and learning needs of each student. Our study deals with theoretical dimensions of this multilayered concept and investigates the in-school use of digital technologies for personalized learning as reported by students in connection with their self-assessed digital skills and beliefs about the usefulness of ICT in learning. For this purpose, we have analyzed data from a survey of N = 860 students (8th grade) from 31 Swiss schools that have introduced personalized learning concepts. A structural equation model shows that increased reported use of digital technologies in learning environments that are characterized by open teaching methods is an important aspect of personalized learning because it has a positive effect on both self-reported digital skills and self-perceived ICT-related beliefs in learning. At the same time, the experienced freedom of choice in learning activities that include digital technologies, which is often considered a crucial dimension of personalized learning, has no significant effect.

Dual effects of transformational leadership on teacher efficacy in close and distant leadership situations

ABSTRACTAlthough research generally attests to the beneficial role of transformational leadership (TL) for school effectiveness, little empirical work has distinguished individual- from group-focused dimensions of TL and analysed their relationships with target variables at the individual and group level of followers simultaneously. Using a dual effects model of TL, the present study aims to fill this gap. It examines the dimensional structure of principals’ TL behaviours and their prognostic value for teachers’ self- and group-referential efficacy beliefs. Additionally, contextual dependencies of leadership effects are considered through the moderating role of a principal's span of control. Based on questionnaire data of 1,702 teachers in 118 Swiss schools, doubly latent ML-SEMs specify moderated dual effects of TL on both teacher and school levels of analysis. Results convey empirically separable latent sub-dimensions of TL (individual-/group-focused), which (a) characterise systematic differences in the leadership behaviours of the investigated principals and (b) substantially predict variations in the mean-levels of both teacher and collective efficacy between their respective schools. TL-collective efficacy relations are stronger in close leadership situations (low span of control) than in distant ones.

Parental involvement: an issue for Swiss primary school teacher education

This article is the Swiss contribution to the European project ‘Collaboration on Improving Students’ Preparation for Family–School Partnerships’. It presents results from a study investigating how Swiss Schools of Teacher Education prepare primary school students for cooperation with the parents of four- to thirteen-year-old pupils. Nine Schools of Teacher Education in the German-speaking part of Switzerland were surveyed. The study conducted questionnaire surveys, key informant interviews and document analysis on this topic. This article focuses on the results for primary school teacher education. The findings show that Swiss primary school teacher education programmes accord importance to family–school cooperation. All Schools of Teacher Education cover the topic of family–school cooperation either by conducting special courses on this subject or by connecting the subject with other courses. However, the content and extent of the coverage of and linkages to family–school cooperation in the courses largely depends on the individual educator. Moreover, preparing for family–school cooperation is an important issue during in-field training. The results of this study differ from those in other countries and contradict common prejudices in public perception on the issue in Switzerland.

Cooperative Learning about Nature of Science with a Case from the History of Science.

This paper reports a predominantly qualitative classroom study on cooperative learning about nature of science (NOS) using a case from the history of science. The purpose of the research was to gain insight into how students worked with the historical case study during cooperative group work, how students and teachers assessed the teaching unit, and in what ways students’ ideas about selected aspects of NOS changed as a result of the teaching unit. In cooperation with two biology teachers, a four-lesson teaching unit about NOS and the early research on Archaeopteryx was developed, field-tested, modified, and tested again. Altogether, five classes of 10th and 11th grade students from two Swiss schools participated. Data were collected by videotaping group work, interviews with student groups and teachers, questionnaires, and pre- and post-tests about NOS conceptions. Results show that group work was mostly of good quality, both with regard to students’ cooperation and understanding of the case study. Second, both the topic and the instructional design of the unit were judged very positively. Third, students showed more informed views on the selected target NOS aspects after the teaching unit. The paper ends with conclusions regarding teaching and learning about NOS, cooperative learning and questions for future research.

The exclusionary side effects of the civic integration paradigm: boundary processes among youth in Swiss schools

Civic integration policies have become common in many European states and require that immigrants commit to integrating into the host society. This article draws on a study with young people in Swiss schools and investigates how these new political debates around civic integration find resonance in everyday narratives about immigration. The boundary approach is used as a framework to study the daily (re)production of the ‘Swiss–foreigner divide’. It reveals that assimilation into ‘Swiss culture’ (e.g. speak the local language and conform to social norms) remains a criterion defining who can become a legitimate member of Swiss society. Nonetheless, integration deficits are often perceived as the rule and transformed into a stigma so that ‘foreigners’ are frequently not recognised as legitimate members of society. This study indicates how the Swiss youth in this study legitimise and (re)produce exclusion and how this exclusion is embedded within past and current Swiss immigration policies.

Bewegung trotz Sportdispens – activdispens.ch

Objective: The objective of the project is to actively integrate students partially dispensed from school sport through an adapted form of sports dispensation as well as a customized selection of exercises. Method: By means of two online questionnaires, both structured similarly with respect to questions and main themes, a needs assessment was carried out. The questionnaires were sent by e-mail to 2600 members of three Swiss medical associations, doctors of the University Children’s hospital of Basel as well as to approximately 4000 sports teachers of the Swiss organization for sports at school. The addressees were asked to complete the questionnaire within two weeks. The sample size was n=87 (doctors, return rate of 3%) and n= 213 (sports teachers, return rate of 5%). A catalog of 54 exercises was developed using physiotherapeutic and school sport specific literature. The exercises were picturised and were published together with the dispensation form on a newly designed website. Results: Feedback from online questionnaires showed the necessity for a consistent partial dispensation with precise information on permitted and to be avoided stress. Furthermore it is important to clarify which parts of the body are allowed to be stressed or must not be stressed. Additionally the results made it clear that although the form of dispensation should show all relevant information for sports teachers, the time needed to fill in this form should be minimal. After the pilot phase the interest in the subject among doctors and sports teachers was great. However their cooperation turned out to be the most difficult and challenging part, with regard to integration of the project across the country. Discussion: Sports dispensations are an on-going very important topic in Swiss schools. The respondent group of doctors mostly agree on the layout of such a dispensation form and content needed. The same applies to sports teachers. However the most difficult part when talking about sports dispensations appears to be the collaboration of both groups and the functioning as a unity.

Swiss Architectural Origins, Le Corbusier, and the Pātaka of Lake Horowhenua (1845)

In April, 1845, the Rev. Richard Taylor passed through the area of the North Island now marked by the town of Levin. At this time, he described Lake Horowhenua as being of singular appearance for the small storehouses built over the water on poles. As was his predilection, Taylor made a drawing of the lake huts, a version of which was belatedly included in the second edition of his most important literary contribution, Te Ika-a-Māui (1870). This image would have remained as little more than a questionable curiosity was it not for Messrs Black Bros who, in the course of exploring the lake bed for Māori artefacts in 1932, legitimised Taylor's observation with their discovery of the submerged architectural remains of an aquatic hut. Nonetheless, almost a century after Taylor's original diary entry, GL Adkin, writing for The Journal of the Polynesian Society, lamented the neglect shown toward these remarkable structures, and which he cited as just one example of the "tantalising gaps" in the recorded history of Māori custom and culture. Sadly, it is well beyond the scope of this research to properly redress the historical neglect shown toward lake pātaka. What I do wish to do is to link these structures to an event on the shores of the Lake of Zurich, Switzerland, when Dr Ferdinand Keller noticed some half-submerged piles in 1854. Upon these remains Keller made a great, if erroneous, case for primitive "pile-work habitations" in the Swiss lakes. The impact of this argument cannot be understated. It became the privileged model for architectural origins in the German and French parts of Switzerland, and by the 1890s it was a part of standard teaching texts in Swiss schools, where it was firmly inculcated into the curriculum at the time that Charles Edouard Jeanneret was a child. This in turn has led Vogt to suggest that, in Keller's "dwellings on the water," Le Corbusier found a Primitive Hut typology that underpinned all his architectural thinking, and which is made most explicit in his principled use of piloti. What makes this all the more involved is that Keller, in searching for examples to visualise the construction of the Swiss lake dwellings, turned to the Pacific (which he categorised as at a developmental stage of architectural evolution akin to early Europe). In this paper I identify the exact etching by Louis Auguste de Sainson that Keller took for direct influence. The problem, however, is that de Sainson depicted a conventional whare built on land, and Keller transposed it to the water. So we have on the one side of this paper an authentic lake whare that is all but forgotten, and a famed European lake-hut that is all but Māori, and between the two is the figure of Le Corbusier who may or may not have unknowingly based one on his major innovations on influences found in the pātaka of Lake Horowhenua.

Predicting physical activity in adolescents: The role of compensatory health beliefs within the Health Action Process Approach

Objective: Compensatory health beliefs (CHBs), defined as beliefs that healthy behaviours can compensate for unhealthy behaviours, may be one possible factor hindering people in adopting a healthier lifestyle. This study examined the contribution of CHBs to the prediction of adolescents’ physical activity within the theoretical framework of the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA).Design: The study followed a prospective survey design with assessments at baseline (T1) and two weeks later (T2).Method: Questionnaire data on physical activity, HAPA variables and CHBs were obtained twice from 430 adolescents of four different Swiss schools. Multilevel modelling was applied.Results: CHBs added significantly to the prediction of intentions and change in intentions, in that higher CHBs were associated with lower intentions to be physically active at T2 and a reduction in intentions from T1 to T2. No effect of CHBs emerged for the prediction of self-reported levels of physical activity at T2 and change in physical activity from T1 to T2.Conclusion: Findings emphasise the relevance of examining CHBs in the context of an established health behaviour change model and suggest that CHBs are of particular importance in the process of intention formation.