Soziale Eingebundenheit im individualisierten Unterricht: Eine Experience-Sampling Studie

The need for social embeddedness is considered a fundamental human need and is important for learning at school. In an individualized classroom, where the focus is on individual learning processes and exchange between students is limited, it might be a challenging to integrate all students in a classroom community. However, individualized instruction should be based on students’ needs and therefore consider both the individual learning process and the need for social embeddedness. The present study investigates the extent to which students feel socially embedded in individualized classrooms and whether this is related to individualized instruction on the surface structure of instruction (differentiation of tasks, autonomous task solving, and self-directed learning) and features of the deep structure of instruction (cognitive activation, classroom management, constructive support, and sense of community). For this purpose, an experience-sampling-study was conducted. 237 students from 22 classrooms were equipped with tablet computers and were asked ~10.12 times over a week how comfortable they felt with their classmates. First, the extent to which social embeddedness varies within and between students, as well as between classroom situations and between learning groups, was investigated. Most of the variance was found to be within and between students. Furthermore, positive correlations were found between social embeddedness and features of individualized instructional design (autonomous task solving) as well as features of teaching quality (constructive support and sense of community). The study provides initial insights into the variability of social embeddedness in individualized instruction and emphasizes the importance of a positive relationship between the teacher and the students, as well as among the students.