The structure of cognitive competencies
Operationalising and assessing competences are part of the core business of the IQB. For this purpose, it is necessary to develop theoretical definitions of the constructs that are to be measured and to investigate the structure of these constructs by conducting empirical studies. This provides the theoretical and empirical foundation for the measurement of competences in large-scale educational assessments such as the national assessment studies (Ländervergleich / Bildungstrend) and comparison tests (VERA).
Empirical studies conducted at IQB involving structural and dimensional analyses investigate the extent to which the respective competences represent distinguishable constructs and how these constructs are related to one another. Findings from competence assessments based on complex structural models can provide policy makers and educational practice with information on the specific fields of competence that should be fostered in the future.
First, researchers at IQB investigate the extent to which different dimensions of particular subject-specific competences can be empirically distinguished from one another. This concerns, for instance, the differentiation between different aspects of writing competence depending on the scoring rubrics and analyses on the internal structure of reading competence (e. g., the differentiation between the comprehension of literary texts on the one hand and comprehension of non-fiction texts on the other hand). Second, research at IQB also focuses on the relationships between different competences in a specific subject. One example of this is the empirical differentiation between productive and receptive as well as oral and written language competences in German and in English as a foreign language. Third, other research explores the relationships between students’ general cognitive abilities, their declarative knowledge and their subject-specific competences such as reading comprehension.
Selected Publications
- Böhme, K. & Robitzsch, A. (2009). Methodische Aspekte der Erfassung der Lesekompetenz [Methodical aspects of reading competence assessment]. In D. Granzer, O. Köller, A. Bremerich-Vos, M. van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, K. Reiss & G. Walther (Hrsg.), Bildungsstandards Deutsch und Mathematik. Leistungsmessung in der Grundschule (pp. 250–289). Weinheim: Beltz.
- Frederking, V., Henschel, S., Meier, C., Roick, T., Stanat, P. & Dickhäuser, O. (2012). Beyond functional aspects of reading literacy: Theoretical structure and empirical validity of literary literacy. L1 - Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 12, 35-58.
- Kampa, N. & Köller, O. (2016). German national proficiency scales in biology: Internal structure, relations to general cognitive abilities and verbal skills. Science Education.
- Leucht, M., Retelsdorf, J., Möller, J. & Köller, O. (2010). Zur Dimensionalität rezeptiver Kompetenzen im Fach Englisch. Zeitschrift für Pädagogische Psychologie, 24, 123–138.
- Schipolowski, S. & Böhme, K. (2016). Assessment of writing ability in secondary education: Comparison of analytic and holistic scoring systems for use in large-scale assessments. L1 – Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 16, 1–22.
- Schroeders, U., Wilhelm, O. & Bucholtz, N. (2010). Reading, listening, and viewing comprehension in English as a foreign language: One or more constructs? Intelligence, 38, 562–573.
- Winkelmann, H. & Robitzsch, A. (2009). Modelle mathematischer Kompetenzen: Empirische Befunde zur Dimensionalität [Models of mathematics competence: Empirical findings on dimensionality]. In D. Granzer, O. Köller, A. Bremerich-Vos, M. van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, K. Reiss & G. Walther (Hrsg.), Bildungsstandards Deutsch und Mathematik. Leistungsmessung in der Grundschule (pp. 169–196). Weinheim: Beltz.