School-Barometer for Germany, Austria and Switzerland: COVID-19, School and Education

Primary ,Secondary ,Vocational training

http://www.bildungsmanagement.net/Schulbarometer/en/

The aim of the School Barometer is to nationally and internationally monitor the current school situation in Germany, Austria and Switzerland by collecting the perspectives of various actors (i.e. parents, students, school staff, school leadership, school authority, school support system). In doing so, it aims to contribute to an evidence-based or data-informed discussion within and between persons (e.g. teachers, parents, politicians), institutions (e.g. schools, school authorities) and disciplines (e.g. education, policy).
Regarding school closures in spring 2020, the current school situation should be described from the point of view of various groups of people (pupils, parents, school staff, school administrators, representatives of the school administration and the school support system).
To generate a deeper understanding of the challenges and chances in the current situation, the School-Barometer covers the following topics:
communication and cooperation,
the situation at home,
digital teaching and learning,
the perception of stress.
As well, the interviewees are invited to comment on their current needs and wishes.

To ensure that it engages in responsible science—described within the EU context as responsible research and innovation, which includes responsible leadership with analytic, morale, cooperative and systematic adjustment perspectives (Maak & Pless, 2006; Stone-Johnson, 2013; Huber, 2020)—academia has a responsibility to share and generate knowledge that is of relevance to those who have to make decisions, and those who are in the midst of complex actions and, we argue, particularly in times of crisis. The task of responsible science is to translate challenges in society to research and translate or relate research to policy and practice. Today, such research can help to describe the COVID-19 crisis and analyse its consequences on schools and education. It also has the responsibility to develop conclusions and possible implications of actions by different actors, such as actions related to policy, practice and, of course, further research. As the School-Barometer was planned as a fast survey, and thus the instrument was developed in one week, data were collected over two weeks and the findings were disseminated as quickly as possible, the first report already after one week, the third report as open access book publication after less than 3 weeks, some kind of communication strategy to reach out to all the different groups was needed. This approach reflects a contribution to support constructive news (Haagerup, 2017) in media to the public.

However, we note that this implies tensions, conflicts or dilemmas. Different systems operate with different systems of grammar, including ethics, regulations, expectations, standards and language (terminus technicus) to name but a few. The domain of research has certain standards, as does the domain of evaluation and assessment (and these standards may differ between organisations; see, e.g., https://europeanevaluation.org/resources/evaluation-standards), with professional agreement and discourse. Domains and communities of policy and practice also have certain expectations and needs for action. This raises a question: is it possible to integrate different kinds of standards and expectations from different communities? We argue that it is part of responsible science to be transparent regarding methodology and be careful to avoid oversimplification and misinterpretation of findings and to deal transparently with the dilemma between a fast survey and slow research. This is a common professional understanding in all the domains stated above, particularly research.

Schul-Barometer@phzg.ch

Diese Information wurde am 16. April 2021 aus dem Repositorium Airtable entnommen.

This factsheet is only available in German.