Functional relevance of students’ prior knowledge and situational uncertainty during verbal interactions in vocational classrooms: evidence from a mixed-methods study

Abstract

Background: Descriptive accounts of instruction in German vocational schools consistently indicate whole-class dialogue to be prevalent. We aim to extend previous research by elucidating pedagogically valuable dialogic practices that facilitate conceptual understanding, and by empirically investigating factors that promote or hinder student engagement in these practices. We focus on prior knowledge in the domain discussed, because knowledge differences count among the prime sources of heterogeneity among vocational students in Germany. However, with survey studies suggesting a decisive role of communication apprehension, we also intend to explore if feelings of uncertainty in ongoing verbal interactions moderate the knowledgeengagement relationship, while controlling for potential confounding and competing influences. Methods:The study employs a longitudinal, multi-method design. It combines video recordings of nine consecutive lessons about Economic Business Processes in two classes, preceding tests on intellectual abilities and economic literacy, questionnaire reports of teacher-student relations and instructional clarity, and Continuous State Sampling during instructional activities. Interactional features were classified by applying a fine-grained category system that distinguishes coordinating gestures as well as types and qualities of dialogic exchanges.Results and discussion: Hierarchical regression analyses provide some evidence that getting opportunities to engage in valuable components of classroom dialogue depend on domain-specific prior knowledge. Differential teacher treatment exists in cold calling strategies and demanding follow-up techniques, even after controlling for students' gender. Moderated regressions for effects of prior knowledge and situational uncertainty on students' communicative behaviours indicate that advanced knowledge structures do not affect the mere quantity of a student's verbal contributions. But they robustly predict the degree of elaboration in given answers, together with positive teacher-student-relations, and net of the influences of student gender and instructional clarity. Feelings of uncertainty neither keep students from participating in classroom dialogue nor impair the quality of their contributions. Open Access© 2015 Kärner and Warwas. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Kärner and Warwas Empirical Res Voc Ed Train (2015) 7:11 DOI 10.1186/s40461-015-0023-7 Page 2 of 26 Kärner and Warwas Empirical Res Voc Ed Train (2015) 7:11 Conclusions: Results suggest that domain-specific prior knowledge is not an indispensable prerequisite to contribute 'somehow' to classroom dialogue. However, it is a decisive...

Emotional states during learning situations and students’ self-regulation: process-oriented analysis of person-situation interactions in the vocational classroom

“…Goetz et al 2016;Kärner 2015;Kögler 2015). For example, Sembill and colleagues conducted different quasi-experimental studies on the concept of self-organised learning and corresponding subjective experiences.…”

“…Findings of a quasi-experimental field study by Wuttke (1999) show that the type of learning environment affects the application of (meta-)cognitive learning strategies: learners in student-centred learning applied a greater number of high-quality strategies in acquiring knowledge and solving problems than learners in a teacher-instructed learning arrangement. With regard to general learning content, there is empirical evidence that phases of student-centred learning are associated with the acquisition of new learning contents, while phases of teacher instruction are predominantly associated with the repetition of learning contents (Kärner 2015). Within student-teacher interaction, high-quality student questioning and argumentation seem to be especially important for creating new knowledge and for solving problems (Wuttke 2012).…”

“…Changes in situational states are caused by situational factors in terms of past, present, and anticipated events (Wild and Krapp 1996;Sembill et al 2002;Wolf and Schumacher 2010). Examples of theoretical frameworks and/or of the empirical investigation of person-situation interactions in VET can be found in Sembill (2004), Seifried (2005), Winther (2009), Kögler (2015, and Kärner (2015).…”

“…Chi 2009; de Kock et al 2004;Sembill et al 2002). Therefore, in phases of student-centred learning, students have extended scopes of action and the time to find their own pace, but they are also confronted with higher degrees of complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity (Deci and Ryan 1985;Kärner 2015;Rozendaal et al 2005;Seifried 2009;Sembill et al 2002).…”

“…Existing studies also reveal some outcomes that specifically occur in teacher-centred environments. For instance, learners' participation during teacher-centred classroom talk mainly depends on learners' characteristics like domain-specific prior knowledge (Kärner and Warwas 2015) or on teachers' prejudices resulting from implicit personality theories (cf. the so called "Pygmalion effect " Seifried 2009;Sembill 1984;Sembill and Dreyer 2009).…”