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This article examines achievement motivation in connection with the political knowledge of upper secondary level pupils at German vocational grammar schools. The influence of achievement motivation in civic courses has been scarcely researched so far. In the expectancy-value model, expectations of success are important determinants of action in relation to academic achievements. Pupils' expectations of success or failure in civics courses have a behaviour-regulating function. They influence pupils' behaviour when learning about politics. In the cross-sectional survey of 470 pupils, results show lasting effects from an approach motivation ("hope of success") and an avoidance motivation ("fear of failure") studied. The data of this study confirmed the influence of achievement motivation in civics courses on the school-related political knowledge. While cultural capital makes no significant difference in the extent of the motivational constructs, a migrant background showed moderate but inconsistent effects and gender had clear negative effects for the girls. In this study, it was shown that based on the theoretical foundation described, the theory of domain-specific competency can be combined with the achievement motivation in Civics.

Political education in school is aimed at preparing adolescents for their role as citizens, which comprises political participation as well as political knowledge. While it is generally agreed that basic knowledge about politics is a prerequisite to participation, the specific link between knowledge and participation is left unclear in normative theories of democracy and didactic approaches of political education. A study with 1324 German ninth graders tries to clarify the relationship between the two constructs. The findings show a positive effect from knowledge to the expressed willingness to participate in politics in the future. But against the expectations, already performed political participation does not increase knowledge about politics. Furthermore, girls and pupils with migration background show less knowledge and express less willingness to participate.

Very little research has been conducted on the contribution of political education to learning progress in Germany. Hence, there is a need for intervention studies measuring performance against the theoretical background of a political competence model. This model comprises three constructs: subject knowledge, motivation and attitudes. According to this model, politics lessons should not only convey knowledge but also arouse subject interest, promote political attitudes and develop problem-solving skills. This study investigates how knowledge acquisition is influenced by intervention using theory-oriented teaching materials on the European Union, intervention using conventional textbooks on the European Union and politics lessons without any reference to the European Union. It further asks how the performance-related self-concept and subject interest in political issues impact political knowledge and whether civic virtue and trust in the system are related to it. The sample comprises 1071 pupils. Theory-oriented politics classes lead to greater growth of pupils' knowledge than in the control group. As anticipated, this study proves that a positive subject-specific self-concept impacts knowledge. The examination of political attitudes reveals a positive correlation between civic virtue and knowledge. There is no connection between trust in the political system and knowledge.

This study investigates the effectiveness of political science classes in Germany. It analyzes whether or not 1,071 students in the 9th and 10th grade showed increases in knowledge after participating in the lesson series. This analysis focuses on the competence dimension "subject-specific content knowledge" as well as on the motivational predispositions "academic self-concept" and "interest in politics." It also examines the instructional characteristics "inclusion of students" and "cognitive activation" from the students' perspective. One's academic self-concept and interest in politics, as well as cognitively activating instruction, have a moderately positive effect upon educational success. Social inclusion correlates with all constructs except subject-specific content knowledge.

Within the discipline of political didactics, differing views exist on political judgement as the goal or content of classroom teaching. In this study, political judgement is understood as a competency. It requires situational deliberation and decision-making, but must also take into account political values. For this study, 401 upper secondary pupils in years 11–12 were presented with a 45-minute judgement test. The pupils were asked to adopt a personal position on a specific matter in an essay, using argumentative deliberation. As in the lens model of judgement, they were required to adduce and evaluate different aspects under conditions of uncertainty, since no definitive information was available. In the test, five levels were used to assess the 'complexity' of a judgement. All previous tasks had to be solved before a higher level of complexity could be reached. On the basis of the assumed interdependencies of levels (tasks) in a testlet, the test was scaled using a testlet model from item response theory. All the testlets show significantly higher variances than the test as a whole. The test was able to produce a good total variance. The analyses of construct validity by means of fluid intelligence and subject knowledge conform to expectations. The test evaluated with the testlet model indicates that this can be assumed to be a multilevel process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political didactics is a field that has long resisted examination of teaching efficacy. Of particular importance are questions concerning what teaching personnel know and where their content-based expert knowledge comes from, what is to be taught and how teachers deal with problems in understanding content. Teachers' professional knowledge can be divided into 'content knowledge' (CK), 'pedagogical content knowledge' (PCK) and pedagogical knowledge. Beliefs regarding teaching and learning processes, pupils have active or passive, receptive or constructive roles ascribed to them. These roles are generally distinguished as the basic positions of constructivist and transmission-based concepts of teaching and learning. This study collected the results for German gymnasium teachers (N=196). 38.6 per cent of respondents were female, on average the age of respondents stands at 43.5 years old (SD=11.4). The assumptions about the structure of subject-specific professional knowledge are checked by comparing a one-dimensional IRT model with various multidimensional ones. The model comparison shows a statistically significant model improvement for the two-dimensional model distinguishing between CK and PCK. PCK can be divided into normative political didactic discourses in one dimension and lessonbased items in a second dimension. Investigation of the structural assumptions shows that politics teachers' beliefs on teaching and learning can be integrated into overlapping belief syndromes. Cognitive constructivist orientations go hand in hand with greater subject interest, while transmission-based orientations tend to be related to less interest in politics. There is a slightly significant small negative correlation between a constructivist orientation and lesson-based knowledge (LBK). Those who have been teaching for a long time attain lower scores in the subject-specific didactic part of the test. Participation in further training only has an impact on normative and not on LBK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined predictions of increased learning effectiveness in connection with WebQuest as a self-instructional learning environment in the context of political education. Analyses were based on the data of 502 students from nineth- and tenth-grade classes from middle-track (German: Realschulen) and high-track (German: Gymnasien) German secondary schools. In the framework of the TEESAEC project, lessons employing WebQuest were compared with teacher-directed lessons in a total of 22 classes. This study does not support the effectiveness of new types of teaching methods in comparison to traditional teaching methods. While girls clearly profited more from the lesson series than boys, there was no substantial influence of sex on prior knowledge. Adolescents with a Turkish migration background performed considerably poorer and those with a southern European background somewhat poorer in the pre-test than adolescents without a migration background. With regard to political interest, it was found that while interest in politics in Germany exerted a positive influence on prior knowledge, specific interest in European politics did not explain any unique variance. Pupils may generally profit from parents' cultural capital and too little from political education lessons. The results of the study suggest that motivation and academic self-concept represent factors that are more important than the specific methods applied when it comes to lesson efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]