Germany did not well in TIMSS and PISA. In order to improve the quality of physics instruction a video-study (sponsored by the German Science Foundation within the priority program BiQua) on introductory physics instruction has been carried out. It is the aim of the video-study to investigate instructional patterns (“scripts”) that are characteristic for German physics instruction. There are three phases of 2 years each. In the first phase (‘00-‘02) physics instruction in two German states was investigated. 13 teachers were involved. In the second phase (‘02-‘04) about 50 teachers from four German states participates. There will be also a parallel study in the German speaking part of Switzerland that includes some 40 teacher a year later. The last phase (‘04-‘06) will be used to carry out intervention studies on developing teachers’ subjective theories on “good” physics teaching and learning as well as there teaching behaviour.
The workshop will present the methods used – video-analysis of lessons, various student questionnaires and a teacher interview. Results are so far available only from the first phase. They are “preliminary” in nature due to the small sample and due to the fact that we also used the first phase to develop appropriate research methods. There are two kinds of findings. First, there are descriptive results on key patterns of instruction. They “document” the kind of physics instruction given. Second, we try to analyse which patterns of instruction are linked to better development of achievement and affective variables like interests. It turns out that certain features of instruction actually correlate with better achievement, such as embedding instruction into daily life contexts and deliberately taking students’ ideas into account. Teachers’ thinking about instruction usually is rather topic oriented lacking considerations of how students may learn the particular content. Consequences for improving the quality of instruction and teacher education will be discussed.