Sub-project B: Competence diagnostics and development
Promoting inclusion and enabling every child to participate in education through an optimal learning environment that is adapted to their needs requires knowledge of the necessary competencies of teachers in inclusive teaching-learning settings.
Research on teacher competencies already includes a large number of models (national & international), which, however, mostly refer to more general subject, methodological, social and personal competencies (Frey & Jung, 2011). Concrete competencies that are also required for the implementation of inclusive education in the sense of the UN CRPD are rarely formulated. The available studies either focus on individual aspects of inclusion-specific competencies of teachers, are based on normative models or record competencies of special education professionals (European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education, 2012; Kiel, 2015; Langner, 2015; Niedermair & Hecht, 2015; Redlich, Schäfer, Wachtel, Zehbe & Moser, 2015).
The development of a specific and comprehensive competence profile for teaching in inclusive teaching-learning settings is therefore still pending. In addition to educational science and pedagogical-psychological aspects, consideration should also be given to the principles of occupational psychology. In particular, procedures for requirements analysis have been well researched and are standard in numerous other occupational fields (Heider-Friedel, Strobel & Westhoff, 2006). For this reason, sub-project B of the BMBF project "SING" combines in its approach to competence modeling in a new way methods of classical, occupational psychological requirements analysis with findings from inclusive pedagogy and educational psychology.
Specifically, this means that we use a requirements analysis based on the "Critical Incident Technique (CIT)" (Flanagan, 1954; Koch & Westhoff, 2012) to develop the competence profile. For this purpose, we use the expertise and practical professional experience of head teachers and teachers from all types of schools in order to be able to record the actual requirements of teaching in inclusive teaching-learning settings with their help.
In order to create the most comprehensive skills profile possible, the perspective of people in leadership positions should also be taken into account alongside that of teaching teachers. The latter have a more comprehensive overview of strategic developments in their field of activity and the future tasks that may be associated with them. The planned study will therefore combine bottom-up and top-down approaches.
The following methodological approach is planned: In a questionnaire, all teachers will first be surveyed using an open response format about their goals as well as their assessments regarding qualifications, knowledge and skills for dealing with inclusive teaching-learning settings. Subsequently, in six school-specific workshops with 5-10 teachers, behavior-critical situations in inclusive teaching-learning settings are recorded using the "Critical Incident Technique" and, based on this, behaviors for effective/ineffective coping are extracted (bottom-up).
Based on these behaviors and the data from the teacher survey, experts use a clustering process to derive a preliminary competence profile that is based on the behavioral equation V=fI (U, O, K, E, M, S) (Westhoff & Kluck, 2014). The competence dimensions and competences formulated there are to be assessed by the teachers who took part in the workshop in terms of their significance, compensability and trainability.
In addition, twelve head teachers are also asked in interviews to assess the preliminary competence profile. The interview also includes questions about their goals regarding the implementation of inclusive teaching-learning settings as well as the qualifications, knowledge and skills that they believe are necessary for this (top-down).
Finally, in addition to the feedback from teachers and head teachers, the results of a qualitative text analysis on guiding principles/values for inclusive education, based on legal texts/regulations, are also incorporated into the final revision of the competence profile.
In addition to a cross-school type competence profile for teachers in inclusive teaching-learning settings, school-specific competence profiles will also be created.