‘Visible Learning’ – making learning processes visible – is his subject: New Zealander Prof. Dr John Hattie is regarded as one of the most influential educational researchers of our time. On Wednesday 17 April at 10.00 am, he will give a public lecture at the university (Haarentor campus, Lecture Theatre Centre A14, Lecture Theatre 1).
For the academic, who is on a tour of Europe during the first half of the year, this is his only lecture in Germany. The reason for Hattie’s visit is that the Oldenburg-based educationalist Prof. Dr Klaus Zierer, together with the Swiss social scientist Prof. Dr Wolfgang Beywl, has translated Hattie’s work *Visible Learning* into German. Hattie, who is accepting an invitation from the University’s Centre for Didactics (diz), will receive the German edition of his study from the two translators on the day.
Hattie has been a professor of educational science and director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne since 2011. In 2009, he published his now world-renowned study, which, based on extensive empirical data, identifies indicators of good pupil performance. Since then, the specialised academic community has regarded it as a milestone in educational research. His theories have also attracted widespread public interest.
In his lecture, Hattie will present the study, for which he has collated and weighted findings from over 800 meta-analyses. The aggregated analyses are based on over 50,000 individual English-language studies containing empirical data on 250 million pupils. From these, the educational researcher has identified 138 factors that influence academic performance to varying degrees. He describes the factors in detail and categorises them under the headings ‘learner’, ‘home environment’, ‘school’, ‘curriculum’, ‘lecturer’ and ‘teaching’. On this basis, he formulates assessments of currently debated educational issues such as ‘repeating a year’, ‘open forms of teaching’, ‘homework’ and ‘feedback’.
Hattie’s core message is that the success of learning processes at school depends primarily on teachers. They need a broader understanding of their professional role. It is important that they seek feedback from pupils, evaluate their learning progress and thus make learning ‘visible’. “The message Hattie derives from this for governments is clear,” explains Zierer: “We must invest in teacher training.” Zierer is certain that Hattie’s study will also have a lasting impact on the educational landscape in Germany in the coming years.