Research Project I : “Fair Debating and Written Argumentation”

General Project

Writing, reading, and speaking describe basic literary competencies. It is needful to enable the students to be educationally qualified and achieve the educational equity by the development of those competencies of the students, especially those who are weak in literacy skills (OECD, 2013).

The teaching and research project “Fair Debating and Written Argumentation” was piloted on the subject of German with over 300 students (duration at schools: 11/2021-04/2022). The project can be adapted to many other disciplines, such as political education or social studies and suits the curriculum  of many subjects, and it will be feasible to implement for classroom best practice. In our study, we have been investigating the mutual influence of debating competence on the one side and reading and writing competence on the other side. The participants were ninth-grade students from all school types.

Through this project, the collaboration between university research and school practice can be deepened. As a result of the project, best practice approaches should emerge to transfer them into teacher training methods and further education.

Current Status of the Project

The pilot phase has ended and the results are currently being evaluated. So far, we as a research team of Inclusive German Didactics have conducted two teaching series each on debating and written argument at six schools and collected empirical data on debating, reading, and writing skills. Student teachers from the University of Potsdam were also involved in the implementation of the series of lessons. They designed inclusive German lessons and support services that are true-to-life, project-oriented, and enriched with diverse speaking and writing opportunities, flexible learning strategies, and through the targeted use of analog and digital media. All of our studies are cyclical and designed in collaboration with teachers within the framework of Design-Based Research (Philippakos et al., 2021). After the first two cycles, the reflections of the lessons were systematically evaluated and, as a result, the material and the phases of the learning opportunities for debating and discussion were revised. Currently we are in the third cycle. Student teachers and teachers are being trained with the material and in the phases. The practical applications are being systematically evaluated.

Expected at the end of 2024, a monograph on the project by Prof Dr Winnie-Karen Giera entitled ‘Alle argumentieren - Das Projekt Fair Debattieren und Erörtern in der Sekundarstufe I’ will be published by Peter Lang Verlag.

In 2024, Waxmann Verlag already published an article related to the project under the title ‘Kooperatives Lernen auf Grundlage guten Debattierens: Das Projekt Fair Debattieren und Erörtern’ by Prof Dr Winnie-Karen Giera and Lucas Deutzmann.

Further publications related to the project are in preparation, including Lucas Deutzmann's dissertation entitled ‘Building a learning framework - teaching the writing of dialectical debates through the SRSD approach’, which will be published by Universitätsverlag Potsdam in 2025.

Are you a teacher and does our project arouse your curiosity?

Through this project, the collaboration between university research and school practice can be deepened. As a result of the project, the best practice approaches should emerge to transfer them into teacher training methods and further education.

Are you a student and want to be part of our project?

We are always looking for committed students who are interested in supporting our project in the course of their final theses. The students from bachelor's and master's degree programs in teaching can contact us.