Subproject 4

The development of students’ competences and interests in primary and secondary school

Subproject 4 investigated the development of students’ school competence development in the domains of mathematic, reading and English as foreign language and aimed to explain interindividual differences by factors on the school, classroom and individual level. Beyond the question of interindividual stability of students’ competence development, differential pathways of students’ competences for different groups of students, e.g. different socio-economic background or different scholastic promotion shall be proved and linked with possible mediating processes.

The second focus of the subproject was on the analysis of processes of differentiation of students’ interests. With respect to the individual competence level and the subjective competence beliefs, we asked whether the expected decrease of the mean interest level can be attributed on processes of internal differentiation in favor of certain domains or subjects. Therefore, the students’ interests were measured by an application of the RIASEC-model in combination with the concept of subject domain interests.