490054 PS Praxisforschung (2020W)

Adult learning differs from more conventional contexts of schooling and requires a different approach to the identification and evaluation of learner needs and learning outcomes. In Austria, there are seven night schools (“Abendgymnasien”) that offer adults the opportunity to take preparatory courses for the ‘Reifeprüfung’ examination (“Matura”). As part of the Cooperation School Project, the Centre for Teacher Education has been cooperating with Abendgymnasium Wien in order to develop and strengthen organizational development measures. Empirical research in adult learning thus constitutes an additional institutional gain for schools and universities by creating efficient and practice-based cooperation possibilities.
In this proseminar, which is part of the Cooperation School Project, students will gain practical insights into the organizational structures of an Austrian night school and participate in processes of school development by means of their own empirical research activities. In doing so, students will gain experience in a mostly unfamiliar andragogical field of practice while at the same time being introduced to the reflection of practice. Students learn to use methods of the social sciences such as, inter alia, classroom observation, questionnaire development, research interviews etc. and to perform analyses and evaluations of the data collected. Real-life encounters and cooperation between teachers, academics and students are at the heart of the seminar and serve to enable students to carry out practical empirical research in one of Austria’s night schools (e.g. in Vienna, Graz, Linz).
Empirical research is conducted in project teams and based on established approaches taken from social research methodologies, including quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method designs. Importantly, the questions to be dealt with in the project teams are obtained from andragogical practice in one of the night schools and are selected due to their perceived significance by the institutions. Students will frequently work at the night school assigned to them.
The project teams develop their own questions within the framework of the given framework topic and choose an appropriate research design in consultation with the course leader. Towards the end of the semester, project teams provide research results that can be used for further projects. Delivering presentations and engaging in related exercises within their project teams, participants obtain an overview of the most common empirical research methods and are able to apply them directly to andragogical practice. In addition to working in project teams during the course, students will make use of the resources on Moodle, which will support and facilitate communication among the participants.

In the course, the students will
• become acquainted with basic knowledge and skills in social science research methods,
research ethics and data protection law
• acquire skills of analysis and reconstruction by means of mixed-method analysis
• develop media skills through working with virtual learning platforms
• plan, carry out and reflect on teamwork
• obtain insights into project work and project management and apply these insights to a specific project
• gain experience in writing systematic and scientific reports
• develop skills in reflection