As part of the project module, research was carried out in the summer semester of 2015 on the effect of different temporal links between theory and practice on the intrinsic motivation of pupils. To this end, a year group at an IGS in Oldenburg was taught a selected technical topic (flying) by the students for 7 double lessons. The lessons were conducted in two variants. On the one hand with an alternation of theory and practice in each double lesson (alternating lessons) and on the other hand with three and a half double lessons of theory followed by three and a half double lessons of practice (block lessons). The pupils were asked about their motivation after each double lesson. The results showed that in this setting, the temporal link between the teaching forms had no influence on intrinsic motivation.

In the next phase, a third type of lesson was introduced, in which a strict distinction was no longer made between theory and practice, but lessons were organised in such a way that both areas complemented each other in terms of content (combined lessons). For example, the wing was built and then the lift on it was explained.

The initial results were presented at the 2015 conference of the German Society for Technical Education (DGTB) and printed in the conference proceedings. The third round is currently taking place at two cooperating schools.