Project „stịm·mig“: New types of test items for assessing „prosodic understanding“
Submitted by:
Ulrike Behrens
Abstract:
In oral communication, nonverbal and para-verbal qualities of an utterance are at least as important for understanding its meaning as the verbal information is. However, for technical reasons listening tests in the German speaking countries almost exclusively aim at understanding verbally encoded information. Consequently, prosodic aspects are barely depicted in models of competencies, as far as they are derived from large scale assessments (cp. Behrens/Böhme/Krelle 2009: 376; IQB 2013). The Swiss-German project stịm·mig aimed at addressing this much-criticized gap in listening research. For this purpose, test items were developed which are meant to measure the ability for understanding prosodic information in audio texts as an aspect of listening skills in 3rd grade students (for the construction principles and examples see Zingg Stamm et al. 2016).
In co-operation with the Institute for Educational Quality Improvement (IQB), we were able to test and evaluate the newly developed kind of items in a large German pilot study (VERA-3) including more than 4100 participants. The test takers also accomplished items on the verbal content of listening texts. For all items, the presentation mode was varied („read only“ – „read and listen“ – „listen only“). Therefore, we can also report on effects of item presentation. Finally, since the same population also took a reading test, both internal and external validation of the construct understanding prosodically encoded information is possible.
The data collection and preparation is completed. By April 2018, the statistical analysis will be accomplished. We would like to present results of the study concerning the questions mentioned above. Subsequently, perspectives for extensions of competence models by the dimension of prosodic understanding are being discussed.
References
Behrens, Ulrike/Böhme, Katrin/Krelle, Michael (2009). Zuhören. Operationalisierung und fachdidaktische Implikationen. In: Bremerich-Vos, Albert/Ganzer, Dietlinde/Köller, Olaf (Hrsg.): Bildungsstandards Deutsch und Mathematik. Leistungsmessung in der Grundschule. Weinheim, S. 357-375.
IQB (2013). Kompetenzstufenmodell zu den Bildungsstandards für das Fach Deutsch im Kompetenzbereich „Sprechen und Zuhören“
– Primarbereich – Beschluss der Kultusministerkonferenz (KMK) vom 04.03.2010. Auf Grundlage des Ländervergleichs 2011 überarbeiteter Entwurf in der Version vom 13. Februar 2013 (online verfügbar unter https://www.iqb.hu-berlin.de/bista/ksm)
Zingg Stamm, Claudia/Käser-Leisibach, Ursula/Behrens, Ulrike/ Krelle, Michael/Weirich, Sebastian (2016): Neue Aufgabenformate für die Messung von Zuhörkompetenzen. In: Keller, Stefan/Reintjes, Christian (Hrsg.): Aufgaben als Schlüssel zur Kompetenz. Didaktische Herausforderungen, wissenschaftliche Zugänge und empirische Befunde. Münster: Waxmann, S. 129-140.
Project team:
Ulrike Behrens (Uni Duisburg-Essen)
Ursula Käser-Leisibach (PH der FH Nordwestschweiz)
Michael Krelle (TU Chemnitz)
Sebastian Weirich (IQB, Berlin)
Claudia Zingg Stamm (PH der FH Nordwestschweiz)