Prof. Dr. Michael Goller gave a brief input on the Q method as part of the Empirical Research Network for Vocational Teacher Education on Thursday, April 10. The regular network meeting is led and organized by Dr. Anne Traum and Prof. Franz Kaiser (both University of Rostock). It takes place twice a year.

Q makes it possible to effectively and efficiently record and analyze people's subjective attitudes and beliefs and to identify and describe patterns of shared attitudes and beliefs. In addition to a brief presentation of the method itself (data collection, data analysis, interpretation), Prof. Dr. Michael Goller illustrated this with his own study on the importance of long-term internships in teacher training for the professional development of prospective teachers from the perspective of students.

Those who missed the lecture are also welcome to read the chapter on which the presentation is based:

Leidig, S., Köhler, H., Caruso, C., & Goller, M. (2022). Q Method: assessing subjectivity through structured ranking of items. In M. Goller, E. Kyndt, S. Paloniemi, & C. Damşa (Eds.), Methods for Researching Professional Learning and Development (pp. 441-466). Springer. doi. org/10.1007/978-3-031-08518-5_20

In addition to their own presentation, Dr. Christian Michaelis (University of Göttingen and soon to be University of Leipzig) and Dr. Tobias Geisler (FSU Jena) presented a research project on the career choice motivation of lateral entrants at vocational schools. An exciting insight into a heterogeneous group of potential teachers in vocational education.