Fostering multiple educational goals in high schools. First results of the APU learning environment implementation

Abstract

School educational goals include much more than the transmission of knowledge. Nevertheless, the difficulty to combine cognitive and non-cognitive goals is often emphasized in educational research and practices. The newly developed concept of APU aims at creating an appropriate learning environment enabling students to simultaneously develop their cognitive and non-cognitive skills. The model was implemented and tested during the academic year 2006/07 in seven high schools of the German speaking part of Switzerland. Data are collected through qualitative interviews with teachers (N = 11), and standardised questionnaires completed by students (N = 420). Results show the implementation of the model can be considered relatively successful. The most obvious change yielded by this new teaching model is an increase of student-oriented learning activities in the treatment group.