Measurement instrument design, modelling and validation of an ESD sub-competence for the quantitative assessment of alternative courses of action

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Scientific literacy as well as related concepts in the German scientific debate (Gestaltungskompetenz, Bewertungskompetenz) aim at fostering the cognitive competences to meet real-world challenges of sustainable development. An important applied domain is the environment including issues regarding climate change or biological diversity. Internationally, these issues are addressed by science education research as socioscientific argumentation, socioscientific reasoning and socioscientific decision making. In this field, also the Göttingen Model for socioscientific reasoning and decision making is located. The Göttingen Model describes competences for dealing with decision making challenges set in a morally and scientifically complex world. Regularly, any option to meet such challenges has a differing profile of advantages and disadvantages. Within the Göttingen Model, the sub-competence Evaluating and reflecting solutions qualitatively (BER) has been successfully described, modelled and validated. BER includes the competence to systematically relate scientific facts to individual and societal norms and values. Respective competences are not judged by the decision for or against an option but by an analysis of the argumentation used to reach the decision. The actual social and political discourse on complex policy options in sustainable development is increasingly relying on quantitative methods of scientific and socio-economic impact assessment. Often it is the economic preconditions as well as the economic impacts of policy options that dominate decision making. In spite of their relevance, these methods have not been a focus of competence research to date; this application aims at advancing the Göttingen Model here. Respective competences are to be described, modelled and validated. While the decision for or against a specific policy option remains to be based on individual norms and values, the materially and mathematically adequate application of the methods indicates higher competences than an inadequate one. For example, are the impacts of different land use options on the release of greenhouse gases, biodiversity and agricultural gross margins calculated correctly, and used adequately in a cost-effectiveness analysis? Specifically, it is the aim of the project to empirically validate a theoretically postulated sub-competence on using environmental and institutional economic methods to analyse potential policy options with relevance for sustainable development (Evaluating and reflecting solutions quantitatively-economically, LUR). It will be tested if LUR can be modelled with a Rasch Partial Credit Model, and if LUR is, in fact, an additional sub-competence complementing existing components of the Göttingen Model. We aim at the development of a reliable and valid measurement instrument for LUR. Additional discriminating validations will be carried out against mathematical competence, analytical reasoning, and economic literacy.