Tim Niclas Höffler

Das Papier „Ansatz für ein partnerschaftliches Forschungsdatenmanagement – Konzept für eine schleswig-holsteinische Landesinitiative zum Forschungsdatenmanagement“ stellt Aufgaben, Arbeitsweise, Organisation sowie Zuständigkeiten für die schleswig-holsteinische Landesinitiative zum Forschungsdatenmanagement FDM-SH vor.

Background: Biodiversity is being lost rapidly and its conservation is thus one of the most urgent tasks today. For biodiversity conservation to be successful, the public needs to gain an awareness and understanding of biodiversity and its importance. Moreover, species experts are needed who have the skills necessary for identifying and recording biodiversity. Previous research showed that citizen science projects can contribute to educating the public about biodiversity. However, it is still unclear how project characteristics connect to participants’ knowledge and skills and how citizen science projects should be designed if they are to foster participants’ learning.Aim: We aimed to investigate specific characteristics of biodiversity citizen science projects that could potentially influence participants’ learning. We explored the following project characteristics from both the project coordinators’ and the participants’ perspectives: information and training provided to participants, social interaction among participants, contact between participants and staff, and feedback and recognition provided to participants.Methods and results: In order to examine the extent to which these project characteristics are connected to participants’ gains in knowledge and skills, we conducted a comprehensive study across 48 biodiversity citizen science projects in Europe and Australia. We found that participants’ perceived gains in knowledge and skills were significantly related to the five project characteristics as reported by the participants: information received by the participants, training received by the participants, social interaction among participants, contact between participants and staff, and feedback and recognition received by the participants.Conclusion: We conclude that by deliberately designing citizen science projects to include features such as interaction and feedback, these projects could achieve higher learning outcomes for the participants. Thereby, suitable modes of communication between projects and their participants are crucial. We provide specific suggestions for the design of biodiversity citizen science projects and for future research on project characteristics and participant outcomes.

Citizen science (CS) is regarded as a promising format in environmental and sustainability education as well as in science education. CS projects often assume that participation in the project influences, for example, participants' knowledge or behaviour. We investigated whether and to what extent biodiversity citizen science (BDCS) projects, from the participants' self‐reported perspective, achieve the following six participant outcomes: (a) content, process and nature of science knowledge, (b) skills of science inquiry, (c) self‐efficacy for science and the environment, (d) interest in science and the environment, (e) motivation for science and the environment and (f) behaviour towards the environment. For this purpose, we conducted an online survey of 1,160 CS participants across 63 BDCS projects in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Our survey was aimed at adults participating in CS voluntarily. Survey respondents reported positive changes in all six categories. The most notable result across projects was that self‐reported increases in knowledge, self‐efficacy, interest and motivation were found to be more pronounced when regarding the environment rather than science. Perceived gains in data collection skills were reported to be higher than gains in skills not directly connected to data collection. Reported behaviour changes primarily concerned communication activities, to a lesser degree also gardening activities, and finally more general environmental behaviour. In addition to these six participant outcomes, respondents mentioned a variety of other positive and negative outcomes, for example, health and well‐being, enjoyment, a sense of satisfaction, an increased connection to people and nature but also a more pessimistic view regarding the future of the environment. We conclude that BDCS projects could have a high potential for environmental and sustainability education as well as science education. Further research should investigate individual participant outcomes in more depth and should focus on the factors that influence these participant outcomes. Moreover, exploring the perspectives of both project participants and project coordinators would be valuable. In this way, it would be possible to improve the development and design of CS projects. As a result, BDCS projects could more effectively achieve outcomes for the participants, for science and for biodiversity. A freePlain Language Summarycan be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Girls are underrepresented in mathematical and science Olympiads, global informal learning activities which often serve as stepping stones for admission to top universities and future STEM careers. The present article aims to investigate the role of implicit gender‐science stereotypes on representation and achievement among participants of the German Chemistry Olympiad using a cross‐sectional online study (N= 445, mean age 16.5 years, 51% female) entailing the Implicit Association Test and two motivational scales. This study was the first of its kind to use moderated mediation analysis to examine the effects of gender‐science stereotypes on participation and achievement, mediated by the expectancy and value beliefs self‐concept and topic interest. We found that in the female group, gender‐science stereotypes negatively predicted the participants' willingness to continue in the competition. This relationship was mediated through topic interest. In addition, we found self‐concept predictive for further participation among female participants, as well as for competition score among both gender groups. Furthermore, topic interest positively predicted male participants' willingness to continue with the competition. The results underline the negative association of implicit gender stereotypes with female participation in the German Chemistry Olympiad. Organizations such as the German Chemistry Olympiad should therefore critically reflect on existing gender biases within their own structure. In doing so they can create an environment that has the potential to heighten self‐concept and interest for all participants equally. Our findings add to existing expectancy‐value research in the context of gender differences in mathematics and science, supporting potential strategies toward gender equity.

To make informed decisions has been acknowledged as an essential ability to negotiate socioscientific issues. However, many young people show an inadequate understanding of how to make well-informed decisions, particularly in contexts that are connected to environmental problems. This paper aims to explore the effectiveness of an environmental science competition (BundesUmweltWettbewerb, BUW) to foster students’ socioscientific decision-making. Two different instruments, a paper-pencil test (N = 196 students) and retrospective interviews (N = 10 students), have been used in two successive studies. In addition, both of the applied instruments are investigated theoretically using the “assessment triangle” of the National Research Council (National Research Council, Knowing What Students Know, 2001) as a framework. The results of our studies indicate that participating in the environmental science competition predominantly fosters students’ socioscientific decision-making in its pre-selectional phase. We further argue that promoting the selectional phase of decision-making requires explicit and instructional guidance. With respect to the assessment of socioscientific decision-making, a focus on either structural (decision-making strategies) or contextual (decision content) conditions is argued. Outcomes are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical implications.

The study presented in this paper aimed to examine the effect of visual and verbal cognitive style on learning from different types of visualization and modalities of explanatory text. Learning materials in the form of either computer‐based animation or a series of static pictures with written or spoken explanations were presented to 197 students. We found that a more developed visual cognitive style was related to a better learning outcome, when learning from a combination of static pictures and written text. Higher developed visualizers achieved poorer learning outcomes when learning with an animation and written text. The results are partially in line with an ability‐as‐compensator effect and the expertise reversal effect. Additionally, we found a modality effect as the versions with spoken text provided better results on learning outcome than the versions with written text regardless of the prominence of visual cognitive style. No significant interaction effects were found regarding verbal cognitive style.

Gendered patterns in mathematics and science interest emerge in early childhood, develop over time, and ultimately reflect advanced course selection in secondary education. During the crucial time adolescents become aware of their strengths and interests and specialize accordingly, they get the opportunity to participate in out‐of‐school learning programs such as mathematics and science competitions. This raises the question whether mathematics and science competitions contribute to gender equity by equally promoting female and male interests. In this article, we present a systematic review on gender differences and the mechanisms explaining success and failure in mathematics and science competitions. On an international level, we found large gender differences regarding participation in all Olympiads with the exception of the biology Olympiad. In fairs and national Olympiads, overall participation rates were not gendered as such, but females preferred biology topics whereas males preferred physics related topics. Male and female achievement in fairs was comparable, but males clearly outperformed female participants at the Olympiads, with the smallest differences in the biology Olympiad. Variables and theoretical frameworks explaining participation and achievement and the role of gender in mathematics and science competitions are discussed. We suggest that gender stereotypes, through their influence on self‐concept and interest, play an important role in the mechanisms resulting in low female participation rates in and beyond mathematics and science competitions (especially in physics and chemistry). The mechanisms we found explaining female representation during a national selection competition might be considered as reflecting those in female mathematics or science careers and could thus serve as food for thought on countering the gender gap in mathematics and science.