GRADUATION TALK ▼

JUDGMENTS AND DECISIONS

AN INTERVIEW WITH TOBIAS RAUSCH

▐  Tobias Rausch gives an insight why he put teachers' judgments and decisions under a microscope and works on bringing research results into practice.

   What drew you to your current field and what interests you most about it?

   T.R. Teachers are gatekeepers of the school system and with their judgments and decisions they can open up learning opportunities for their students - or lock them up. From this perspective, teachers are very important and powerful actors in the educational system. The major driver behind my decision to work on teacher decision making was to understand how teachers build their judgments and decisions in order to provide the best support for their students' learning.

   Based on your research, do you think teacher training needs innovation?

   T.R. It would be good to raise pre-service and in-service teachers' awareness about their diagnostic processes based on the current body of research, in order to get more accurate and appropriate judgments. However, my field of research provides just one example among others for possible changes to teacher education and their further training. Today, we know a lot more about successful learning in schools than some decades or even years ago. Let's strive to bring these research results into practice more thoroughly! Let's transfer our findings to teacher education and to their further training! Let's develop teacher education and training towards a more evidence-based approach.

   What is the next step in your career?

   T.R. Currently, my academic work is guided by three main topics. First, I work in a project to enhance teacher education at the University of Bamberg. Together with my colleagues, we generate a database on pre-service teachers, which provides a vantage point for evidence-based development with regard to structure and content of teacher studies. Besides this service aspect, my main research topic here is the genesis and development of pre-service teachers' professional beliefs. Second, I am one of the contributors to a third-party funded research project in cooperation with researchers from the universities of Bamberg and Luxemburg. We aim to develop a tool for teacher assessment and training in the field of diagnostic decision making. And, third, what would working in academia be without also being involved in teaching? I am happy to foster undergraduate students' understanding and learning in the field of psychology in educational contexts in my courses. ◼

Image Credits: © Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences