gms | German Medical Science

This theoretical contribution begins with a short reflection about the complex character of educational objects of research and with a critical evaluation of the often constructed medicine – education analogy with respect to current evidence-based perspectives. The low quality of the educational knowledge base and the necessary “Generalisierungs-Konkretions-Dilemma” (generalization-concretion dilemma; [1]) contribute to repeatedly bemoaned gaps between theory and practice and inevitable problems of evidence-fit. This problematic situation is not at all resolved by the provision of new meta-analyses that are sometimes naively considered as a kind of panacea in this context. Furthermore, it is aggravated by the repeatedly described lack of educational literacy that can be diagnosed in teacher students and teachers. Starting from this problem analysis, a more modest conception of evidence-oriented educational practice is outlined [3] focusing more on the evaluative and reflective nature of educational evidence [2]. In addition, current conceptions and components of educational literacy and prevailing intervention approaches are sketched and critically evaluated. The presentation ends with a brief discussion of future approaches to foster educational literacy, for example by integrating evidence-oriented perspectives and teacher know-how using specific evidence-oriented heuristics and evidence-presentation formats or by small intervention experiments as a specific kind of inquiry learning.