On the cognitive and affective effects of denominational cooperative religious education. A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Ulrich Riegel; Professorin Dr. Mirjam Zimmermann
• Subject Area: General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 523737788

While the concept and objectives of denominational cooperative religious education (kokoRU) have been developed in a differentiated manner, robust empirical studies on its effectiveness are still lacking. The proposed project responds to this desideratum of religious didactics research by investigating the cognitive and affective effects of kokoRU on students in the context of a cluster randomized controlled trial and comparing them with the corresponding effects in conventional denominational religious education. The content of the trial is a lesson on the topic "Living in our church community", so that it can be tested in classes from 3/4 as well as from 5/6. For this purpose, two kokoRU-specific teaching sequences are developed, one of which is primarily oriented towards denominational commonalities (E1), and the second of which is primarily oriented towards differences (E2). E1 and E2 are identical in content, but have different emphases, especially in the tasks. The comparison groups are firstly learning groups from the kokoRU, which do not deal with the topic "Living in our church community" (K1), in order to be able to examine the share of variance, which is explained solely by the didactic setting of the kokoRU, secondly learning groups from the conventional denominational religious education, which deal with the topic "Living in our church community" from the respective denominational perspective (K2), in order to be able to examine the difference between both didactic settings. On the basis of the findings, it can be discussed to what extent the theoretically developed didactic scenarios for the kokoRU produce the intended effects and, if necessary, develop them further on the basis of evidence.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants