idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
The TyMin research project, a collaborative venture between the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) and Otto Friedrich University Bamberg, will kick off in early April 2026. Led by Prof. Dr. Jana Costa (LIfBi) and Dr. Caroline Rau (University of Bamberg), the project, which is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), will spend the next three years investigating how profound pedagogical convictions can be systematically measured. In this way, the project will contribute to the long-term development of teacher training.
Not all knowledge is the same. TyMin (‘From qualitative typology to quantitative measurement instrument: epistemological beliefs of teachers in the humanities’) focuses on the epistemological beliefs of teachers – i.e. their individual views on what ‘knowledge’ is and how learning processes should be designed. While established measurement instruments already exist for science subjects, the humanities domain (i.e. subjects such as English, history or religion) poses particular challenges for research. Here, knowledge is often less tangible and characterised by ambiguity and different ways of interpretation. This is exactly where TyMin comes in.
Making implicit knowledge measurable
The project is based on a study by Caroline Rau. Based on extensive interviews with teachers, the study identified three ideal types of how teachers deal with knowledge and different perspectives in the classroom. The core objective of TyMin is to translate this qualitative typology into a quantitative measurement tool in order to capture the epistemological beliefs of teachers in humanities subjects.
‘The central challenge here is to translate implicit knowledge, which teachers are often unaware of themselves but which guides their actions, into standardised questions in a methodically controlled manner,’ says Jana Costa, project leader at LIfBi and professor of sustainability education at the University of Hildesheim.
Relevance for teacher training
The standardised recording of these beliefs will make it possible in future to make statements about their distribution and statistically test correlations with factors such as professional experience or type of school. In the long term, the results should contribute to a better understanding of teacher professionalism and the evidence-based further development of training in the humanities.
https://www.lifbi.de/en-us/Start/Institute/People/Person/account/2089?name=Costa... Prof. Dr. Jana Costa
Rau, C. Die Wissensgrundlagen des eigenen Fachs verstehen – empirische Befunde zu den epistemologischen Orientierungen von Lehrkräften geisteswissenschaftlicher Fächer. Z Erziehungswiss 24, 91–112 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11618-021-00992-y
https://www.lifbi.de/TyMin Project page
Criteria of this press release:
Journalists, Teachers and pupils
Cultural sciences, History / archaeology, Language / literature, Psychology, Teaching / education
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