Developing a Typology of Modelling Strategies Performed by Science Teacher Students (TypMoL)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Moritz Krell
• Subject Area: General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning
• Term: from 2016 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 327507949

Modelling is a key element of scientific inquiry. As part of inquiry competencies, students in science lessons should perform modelling practices and reflect upon them (metacognition). To enable teachers to implement these goals, prospective science teachers need to develop skills in scientific modelling as part of their professional competence already during their studies.Existing studies indicate that the use of models as tools for scientific inquiry is rarely implemented in science lessons and that (prospective) science teachers understand und use models as media to visualize content knowledge. However, it is not investigated so far which modelling strategies are conducted by prospective science teachers for scientific problem solving in concrete situations.The aim of this project is to fill this research gap with a qualitative and case-based study which aims to develop a typology of modelling strategies performed by science teacher students for scientific problem solving.The project, therefore, complements the mainly quantitative oriented and product-based existing studies focusing on meta-modelling knowledge (metacognition) by providing a process-analysis of typical modelling strategies (performance). The analysis of relations between performance and metacognition may allow to identify approaches to constructively foster prospective science teachers model competence.The performance of science teacher students during modelling for scientific problem solving will be audio- and videotaped. A coding scheme which was developed in preliminary work will be used to analyze and describe the subjects operations (qualitative content analysis with deductive category application). A contrasting comparison of the subjects procedures will be used to derive and describe typical modelling strategies. Based on theoretical considerations, four modelling strategies are expected to be found: explorative, reflective, media, and unsystematic modelers.The developed typology of modelling strategies provides categories which help to assess the diversity of prospective science teachers in this domain and, thereby, helps to enable individual support. After finishing the project, this will be used in courses fostering science teacher students model competence by developing and using specific interventions for each type of modelling strategy.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants