Flexibilization projects in the master's program in empirical educational research

E-learning course with advice

The Master's program in Empirical Educational Research, which has been established at the University of Kassel since 2008, is particularly attractive for teaching graduates or already practicing teachers due to its content orientation. These students usually have to finance their master's degree through part-time work or organize it alongside their teaching job. The proportion of students working at least part-time has increased significantly in recent years. Remaining time resources are often difficult to combine with the courses offered in the master's degree program. It became clear how important it is to offer individual courses at flexible times.

Statistics to go

A focus of the master's degree program is qualitative and quantitative method training. The courses in the important area of ​​statistics are currently offered annually (each in the winter semester). With the support of the QuiS_Flex resources, the preliminary course in Statistics and Statistics II as well as the corresponding exercise will be designed more flexibly and provided asynchronously.

During the project period, an e-learning course is to be created that makes it possible to develop, apply and practice quantitative method knowledge in a self-organized manner. Master's students can independently and flexibly develop the learning content on statistical methods and their applications using statistical software. For this purpose, various learning modules are created that include the theoretical foundations of inferential statistics as well as statistical procedures for testing difference and connection hypotheses.

The learning modules are implemented through text and audio-based explanations, explanatory videos and exercises as well as reflection units in quiz format. Technically, this is done with Rise 360 ​​and Storyline 360, among others. In particular, the possibility of using adaptive feedback and thus taking the students' individual level of knowledge into account even in an asynchronous learning format is a major advantage. The e-learning course should be offered via Open Moodle so that it can be processed at any time or location.

The offer should be continuously evaluated, checked to see if it is up to date and adjusted if necessary. As an individual support option, an additional advisory service is set up in which the independently acquired knowledge can be taken up in personal contact and questions and difficulties can be clarified.