Abstract:

Scientific projects are prepared between the tenth to twelfth grade in order to support the career and study orientation of prospective secondary school graduates. This article deals with the scientific competencies achieved in 138 evaluated term papers. The evaluation was carried out by teacher trainees as part of a teacher training project in their supplementary course of studies to intensify theory-practice relations. The evaluation revealed a higher-performing and a lower-performing group of pupils characterized by different competence profiles with regard to scientific work, considered as a proxy for their information literacy. In these two groups, the development of knowledge for scientific research and citation skills is described under additional consideration of cognitive, social, and psychological dispositions. The data collection was carried out within the framework of the Info-Scouts project as surveys in a field study with comparison of pre- and post-surveys at seven secondary schools in Saxony, Germany. The study offers grounds for further research, questions for which are posed in the conclusions.

Keywords:

Information literacy, teacher training project, term papers, competencies, knowledge.