In the doctoral programme funded by the Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony, the model of Didactic Reconstruction is a research paradigm that places the learner structure before the subject structure. On this basis, conditions for teaching that promotes learning are researched and previously separate or competing directions of subject-specific didactic research are brought together to form comprehensive subject-specific didactic teaching research, which is a first of its kind. At the same time, this model establishes interdisciplinary didactic research as a research focus at the University of Oldenburg. The close cooperation between the subject didactics departments in terms of content and organisation results in a concentration of research capacities at the university and in the region on the one hand, and on the other hand it is carried out in a variety of ways in connection with international subject didactics research.
Supervisors and doctoral candidates on the doctoral programme
Doctoral candidates are optimally supported and supervised through the design of the research-based study programme.

The research framework: Didactic reconstruction

By didactic reconstruction, the participants understand a theoretical framework for the planning, implementation and evaluation of didactic teaching and learning research, which is characterised by a changed research paradigm. Previous research practice in subject-specific didactics has been largely oriented towards the legitimisation, selection and methodisation of existing factual structures. In our research model, on the other hand, the views and inner activities of the students in the respective subject area are central. Didactic research is turned "upside down", as it were, by placing the learning structure before the subject structure. The decisive achievement of the Didactic Reconstruction model is to systematically relate pupils' ideas and subject-specific ideas to each other and to use them for the construction of lesson content. It is therefore always about a) the empirical exploration of pupils' views and inner ideas about the respective subject matter or learning object as well as their own active cognitive and debating behaviour and their learning paths in the area of the subject matter. b) the confrontation of these facts with those historical and current cognitive processes of the respective specialised disciplines that have didactic relevance. c) the reappraisal of the respective subject structure, including the learner perspectives on the learning structure with the corresponding consequences for teaching. For teaching and learning purposes, the respective subject matter must often be embedded in environmental, social and individual contexts to a much greater extent than is the case in the respective scientific field in order to emphasise its significance for the life of the individual in society and the biosphere as a whole. The contexts of teaching and learning are therefore not predetermined by a specialised subject; rather, they must first be created, i.e. didactically reconstructed, with pedagogical objectives. Teaching content therefore differs significantly from the corresponding academic content. For the task of teaching, subject didactics remains dependent on proximity and co-operation with the subject scientists. In the doctoral programme applied for, there are particularly favourable conditions for this through long-term co-operation between subject didacticians and subject scientists in joint projects. An initially open problem in the context of our research programme is the educational-theoretical legitimation of the selection of subject-related content for teaching and learning. In order to address this question, however, subject-specific didactic research findings should be taken into account more than has been the case to date. In accordance with the outlined understanding of subject-specific didactics as a science that opens up the lifeworlds of the learner communities and the subject specialists, three research tasks are formulated in the research framework of didactic reconstruction, which are to be carried out on the respective selected subject area (cf. Fig.):

• Recording learner perspectives:
  specialised didacticians reconstruct as observers what novices perceive, think (expect) and do, and how they express themselves about their lifeworld. These are empirical studies of individual learning conditions and prerequisites that allow the attribution of mental processes, instruments and frameworks. The objects of the investigations can be cognitive, affective and psychomotor components as well as the temporal dynamics of learner perspectives.

• Subject-specific clarifications:
  Subject didacticians, as observers, reconstruct what experts in a scientific discipline perceive, think (expect) and do, and what they describe as scientific knowledge. Subject-specific clarification therefore consists of the critical and methodically controlled systematic examination of specialised scientific statements, theories, methods and terms from a didactic perspective. The subject of the investigations are both current and historical evidence of specialised theory formation and practice. Sources are documents with professionally reflected statements by academics such as original publications, essays, expertises, textbook texts, practical training instructions and work processes of academics.

• Didactic structuring:
  Subject didacticians reconstruct as observers how novices develop competences in a content area and how teachers (optimally) support them as designers of learning environments. The aim is to empirically test the effectiveness of differently didactically structured learning environments. Among other things, the ideas (implicit theories) of teachers about the intended learning processes are to be recorded. In order to be able to fulfil the research task of didactic structuring, learning environments must also be designed within the research projects that correspond to the results of the subject-specific clarifications and the recorded learner perspectives. Formulation levels can be tasks of topic- and student-orientated lesson planning, guidelines or principles of teaching or elaborated teaching elements or curriculum units.

The three investigative tasks of didactic reconstruction cannot be carried out independently of each other. Rather, their results are mutually dependent and mutually supportive. The procedure is therefore recursive, so that the respective (preliminary) results can be used for further steps within the other two research projects (see figure). The model of didactic reconstruction used here was developed in the Didactics of Biology department in Oldenburg. The elements of the research programme are not new in themselves, but the systematic linking of the subtasks is. Individual tasks have so far been partially carried out in individual subject didactics and learner perspectives have been researched in different areas, e.g. in linguistic subject didactics the inner rule formation in the acquisition of legal writing and everyday ideas about grammar, in mathematics didactics the role of pupils' spatial imagination in learning geometric content. The teaching approaches developed on the basis of individual learning prerequisites promise to be more conducive to learning than those that refer exclusively to the specialised subject structure. The research paradigm of didactic reconstruction has already proved to be suitable and fruitful, as previous research work in Oldenburg, Kiel and Bremen has shown.

Literature:

Kattman, U.; Duit, R.; Gropengießer, H., Komorek, M. (1997). The model of didactic reconstruction - A framework for science didactic research and development. Zeitschrift für Didaktik der Naturwissenschaften, 3(3), 3-18. Series: Contributions to Didactic Reconstruction