Subject-specific Barriers of Pre-service RE Teachers in the Diagnosis of Student Competencies

A Qualitative Analysis of Students’ Diagnostic Reports on the Topic "Creation”

Abstract

Assessing and fostering are, in addition to teaching, educating and innovating, core competencies of teaching professionals. Consequently, an increased interest in the conceptualization of diagnostic competencies of teachers has emerged in recent years, particularly in the field of didactics of mathematics and educational sciences. In contrast, research on diagnostic competencies of religious education teachers is still limited. The most elaborated of the few approaches in RE, developed by Oliver Reis and Theresa Schwarzkopf, describes procedural steps of a competence-oriented diagnosis. This approach forms the main conceptual basis of the Bachelor’s module “Diag­nostic competencies: How to access a religious learning process” at the Department of Catholic Theology at TU Dortmund University. On the basis of qualitative content analysis, this article asks for subject-specific barriers of preservice RE teachers in diagnosing students’ competencies in the field of “creation” by analysing pre-service teachers’ research reports on students’ diagnoses. The results of these analyses will then be discussed in the context of a pending theoretical conceptualization of diagnostic competencies of RE teachers.