gms | German Medical Science

”How effective is inquiry based learning in teaching?“ is a often raised and central question to be answered by evaluation and research into teaching and learning.

If you look more closely, there are already difficulties with the term effect. Beywl [1] distinguishes between three forms: a) impact assessment, b) impact modelling and c) empirical proof of efficacy and effectiveness as intended effect.

We would like to use the poster primarily to address the main question on which level inquiry based learning is assessed in recent projects. Starting with 19 different projects in the Qualitätspakt Lehre (QPL) and Qualitätsoffensive Lehrerbildung (QOLB) programmes, we investigate what are the objectives of the projects studied and what goals and effects of inquiry based teaching and learning are reported on. Our findings are based on data from qualitative interviews with the responsible person of the program and document analyses of curriculums and project papers. In particular, we are interested in what is being evaluated and how inquiry based learning is evaluated, i. e. which perspectives actors take on inquiry based learning. This implies that we do not address research orientation exclusively as a didactic method for higher education but as a holistic concept for universities that will effect several levels of university [2]. Such an approach also has an impact on research, which does not only consider the learning success of students, but indicates the need for e. g. organizational research as well.