gms | German Medical Science

At most German universities, a practical term at school including empirical inquiry-based project work is compulsory for teacher students (MSW, 2009). Preceding the practical phase students attend seminars to acquire basic methodological skills and get support with their research projects [1]. The aim of this project work is to educate academically skilled staff (cf. Baumert & Kunter, 2006) adopting a so-called researcher’s attitude (MSW, 2010). This essential component of professionalism (Kullmann, 2011; Fichten, 2010a) can only be raised if students are satisfied with their research process and outcome and if they do not perceive themselves as methodologically incompetent (Fichten, 2010b). An adequate level of perceived competence can possibly be reached via intensive methodological preparation (ibid.).

“Inverted classroom” (cf. Großkurth & Handke, 2016) offers the advantage of shifting the “passive“ knowledge acquisition to preparatory video-based self-study (e.g. Tolks et al., 2016). Thus, lecture time can be used “actively” for exercises, questions and discussions with direct reference to the students’ research projects. This shift offers the ideal infrastructure for students‘ project work as a form of “inquiry-based learning“ (cf. Love et al., 2015). It allows for an individual match of the skills students need for planning and conducting research projects with the skills they actually have - which is the basis for a high perception of competence [2], [3]. The resulting finer grasp of methods is supposed to lead to a more self-determined quality of motivation (cf. [4]; Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2000; Krapp, 1999). On the long term, this can lead to the adoption of a researcher’s attitude (cf. Fichten, 2010b).

Therefore, we plan to improve students’ methodological preparation through “inverted classroom”. As dependent variables we focus on students’ self-determined quality of motivation, methodological skills and the quality of their project reports. When a high quality of instruction is guaranteed, the impact of the empirical inquiry-based project work can be the focus of the next evaluative step.