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Methodology of Educational Measurement and Assessment

Susanne Kuger
Eckhard Klieme
Nina Jude
David Kaplan Editors

Assessing
Contexts of
Learning
An International Perspective
Methodology of Educational Measurement
and Assessment

Series editor:
Bernard Veldkamp, Research Center for Examinations and Certification (RCEC),
University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands
Matthias von Davier, Educational Testing Service, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
This new book series collates key contributions to a fast-developing field of education
research. It is an international forum for theoretical and empirical studies exploring
new and existing methods of collecting, analyzing, and reporting data from
educational measurements and assessments. Covering a high-profile topic from
multiple viewpoints, it aims to foster a broader understanding of fresh developments
as innovative software tools and new concepts such as competency models and skills
diagnosis continue to gain traction in educational institutions around the world.
Methodology of Educational Measurement and Assessment offers readers reliable
critical evaluations, reviews and comparisons of existing methodologies alongside
authoritative analysis and commentary on new and emerging approaches. It will
showcase empirical research on applications, examine issues such as reliability,
validity, and comparability, and help keep readers up to speed on developments in
statistical modeling approaches. The fully peer-reviewed publications in the series
cover measurement and assessment at all levels of education and feature work by
academics and education professionals from around the world. Providing an
authoritative central clearing-house for research in a core sector in education, the
series forms a major contribution to the international literature.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13206

Susanne Kuger • Eckhard Klieme
Nina Jude • David Kaplan
Editors

Assessing Contexts
of Learning
An International Perspective
Editors
Susanne Kuger Eckhard Klieme
Department for Educational Quality Department for Educational Quality
and Evaluation and Evaluation
German Institute for International German Institute for International
Educational Research (DIPF) Educational Research (DIPF)
Frankfurt, Germany Frankfurt, Germany

Nina Jude David Kaplan

Department for Educational Quality Department of Educational Psychology
and Evaluation University of Wisconsin-Madison
German Institute for International USA
Educational Research (DIPF)
Frankfurt, Germany

ISSN 2367-170X ISSN 2367-1718 (electronic)

Methodology of Educational Measurement and Assessment
ISBN 978-3-319-45356-9 ISBN 978-3-319-45357-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-45357-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016955293

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors
or omissions that may have been made.

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Foreword

International large-scale assessment (ILSA) is a phenomenon that is gaining increas-

ing attention globally and is highly influential in educational policy discussions.
While many are strongly against ILSA, others see the studies as providing indis-
pensably useful information both for policy and research. The heated debate about
ILSA may give the impression that it is a recent phenomenon. However, the first
ILSAs were conducted as early as the 1960s by the IEA (International Association
for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement), which was formed on the initiative
of UNESCO. There were several reasons why an organization aiming to understand
the workings and outcomes of educational systems was created at this time. One
was the great quantitative expansion of education during the postwar decade and
another was that the rapid expansion of knowledge put demands on reforms of cur-
ricula and the organization of schooling. International economic competition, and
the Cold War between East and West, also contributed to an increased focus on the
creation and dissemination of knowledge and on the importance of leadership in
science and technology nor have the circumstances that gave impetus to the devel-
opment of ILSA disappeared: the quantitative expansion of education worldwide
has accelerated during the last 50 years, and the expansion of knowledge has turned
into a knowledge explosion; furthermore, technological and economic competition
has become global and even more intense. This partially explains why ILSA is more
in focus now than ever before.
The early ILSA studies were in many respects similar to more recent ones.
Samples of students representing different stages of education were drawn. The
students took achievement tests and responded to questionnaires, as did their teach-
ers and school leaders. The data were analyzed and reported to answer research
questions formulated on the basis of theories and conceptual models. When the
results were presented, they received considerable media attention and often stirred
intense educational policy debates, particularly so when the results were not as good
as hoped for.
However, despite the similarities between the early ILSAs and the current gen-
eration of studies, there are also profound differences. The early studies did not
allow for describing country-level change in achievement from one study to another,

v
vi Foreword

and repeat studies of the same subject matter area only appeared 15–20 years apart.
Starting with TIMSS 1995, PISA 2000, and PIRLS 2001, it became possible to
obtain information about achievement trends over cycles of 3–5 years, which made
the results much more useful and meaningful, because interpretations did not have
to be confined to comparisons with other countries. Typically, the early studies
could not claim that the samples of students were representative of the population,
but through better student and school registers, and through advances in sampling
techniques, well-founded claims of representativeness could now be made.
Furthermore, even though the early ILSAs often used matrix-sampling designs, the
psychometric techniques available did not allow results for students taking different
items to be put on the same scale; now, however, this is easily done with techniques
based on item-response theory. Thus, there has been immense methodological
development from the early ILSAs to the current generation of studies.
However, while great empirical advances have been made, a corresponding
degree of theoretical progress cannot be seen. It has always been the ambition in
ILSA research to build a body of empirically grounded theoretical knowledge about
educational processes and outcomes, but reviews both of early and recent ILSA
studies have concluded that this aim has not been reached. The fundamental idea of
ILSA research is to take advantage of differences between educational systems, but
this idea has been challenged by the fact that the educational systems are embedded
in countries with different cultures, languages, economies, and historical back-
grounds. This heterogeneity makes it virtually impossible to make correct causal
inferences about determinants of achievement, and particularly so when only cross-
sectional data is available, as is typically the case in ILSA. Yet another reason for the
failure to create a body of theoretical knowledge is that the ILSA researchers have
put much less effort into conceptualizing and measuring possible explanatory fac-
tors than in defining and measuring the cognitive outcomes. This is where the
research reported in the present volume enters into contention.

The Present Volume

This book uses the field trial for PISA 2015 as an illustrative example, aiming to
develop a theoretical foundation for ILSA research and to identify the most impor-
tant contextual constructs in different domains. The book is structured into four
main parts. Part I is an introduction, which in four chapters describes the theoretical
and methodological framework: “Dimensions of Context Assessment,” “The
Assessment of Learning Contexts in PISA,” “The Methodology of PISA: Past,
Present, and Future,” and “An Introduction to the PISA 2015 Field Trial: Study
Design and Analyses Procedures.” Part II comprises four chapters, each of which
focuses on different aspects of student background: “Social Background,” “Ethnicity
and Migration,” “Early Childhood Learning Experiences,” and “Parental Support
and Involvement in School.” Part III deals with outcomes of education beyond
achievement and comprises five chapters: “Bias Assessment and Prevention in
Foreword vii

Noncognitive Outcome Measures in Context Assessments,” “General Noncognitive

Outcomes,” “Dispositions for Collaborative Problem Solving,” “Science-Related
Outcomes: Attitudes, Motivation, Value Beliefs, Strategies,” and “ICT Engagement
in Learning Environments.” Part IV deals with different aspects of learning in
schools: “A Dynamic Perspective on School Learning Environment and Its impact
on Student Learning Outcomes,” “Building More Effective Education Systems,”
“Curriculum and Learning Time in International School Achievement Studies,”
“Science Teaching and Learning in Schools: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations
for Investigating Classroom-Level Processes,” “Teacher Qualifications and
Professional Knowledge,” and “Assessment and Evaluation in Educational
Contexts.”
As is clear, even from this quick overview of the content, the context assessment
measures proposed cover a much broader range of aspects than has hitherto been
systematically covered in ILSA. The categories of informants have also been
extended by including not only student, parent, and principal questionnaires but also
teacher questionnaires; previously, teachers have not been used as informants in
PISA. This broadening of topics and informants is in line with the theoretical frame-
work selected, namely, educational effectiveness research, which provides a well-
chosen theoretical grounding for the contextual measures. Each of the chapters also
provides in-depth analyses of the theoretical issues and proposes well-grounded
suggestions for constructs and indicators. The book thus provides an extremely rich
source of information about and conceptualization of virtually every contextual
aspect of importance for understanding determinants of schooling outcomes.
The next challenge is to capture as broad a selection of the contextual informa-
tion as possible in the PISA main study. Chapter 2 describes the history of contex-
tual measures in PISA and observes that in the original design, indicators of trends
were included, with the intention of explaining changes in outcome levels. However,
while some of these trend indicators have been implemented across cycles, not all
of them are available for every cycle. The PISA 2012 questionnaire design was
expanded to include both general- and domain-specific indicators, but the broader
selection of context indicators made the allocated assessment time of 30 min insuf-
ficient. The assessment design was changed therefore by implementing a rotated
booklet design for the questionnaires. Regrettably, experiences with the rotated
booklet design were not altogether positive, so for PISA 2015, this approach was
discontinued. Thus, there are major challenges that are yet to be resolved in respect
of how to practically implement a sufficiently broad coverage of contextual factors,
at the same time as continuing the collection of the trend information from earlier
assessment cycles.
The systematic selection and definition of the contextual variables improves the
possibilities of theoretical advances in ILSA research. However, the cross-sectional
design of the ILSAs imposes restrictions on the possibilities for testing hypotheses
about causal relations and is therefore a hindrance to the development of theory.
While some causal questions can be investigated by taking advantage of the longi-
tudinal nature of PISA data at the country level, these possibilities are reduced by
the limited access to trend data for the contextual factors. However, in Chap. 14 the
viii Foreword

authors observe that if the sampling procedure of PISA could be changed in such a
way that data from the same schools are collected in two consecutive cycles, it
would be possible to investigate to what extent changes in specific aspects of school
learning environments are associated with changes in cognitive and affective stu-
dent learning outcomes. Such a design could dramatically improve the possibilities
for developing empirically grounded theoretical knowledge about school-level edu-
cational processes and outcomes. This is just one of a large number of useful sug-
gestions presented in this volume.
In summary, this book reports work that aims to put ILSA on a solid theoretical
foundation, to identify the most important contextual constructs in different
domains, and to propose indicators that are suitable for measuring the constructs. In
conjunction with this published volume, an electronic repository has also been built,
in which the actual survey items are stored along with their metadata. While the
work comprised in this volume was conducted in the context of the field trial for the
PISA 2015 study, the contribution goes much beyond this particular investigation
and should rather be seen as creating important infrastructure for the future develop-
ment of ILSAs in general.

University of Gothenburg, Sweden Jan-Eric Gustafsson

Preface

This edited volume and the additional electronic material are assembled to augment
the interplay between educational effectiveness research (EER) and school achieve-
ment studies in international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) by bringing together
state-of-the-art research knowledge and current practical and policy discussions on
a wide range of EER topics. Furthermore, this volume seeks to increase the degree
of transparency in how this knowledge has been applied to develop and evaluate
questionnaire material for the context assessment in an example ILSA: PISA 2015
(Programme for International Student Assessment). The intentions of this volume
are fourfold: (1) to illustrate how a close collaboration between EER and ILSA can
inspire both fields and increase their scope, (2) elucidate exemplary topics of inter-
action, (3) highlight challenges that arise during fieldwork, and (4) provide a sound
theoretical foundation for future work at this interface. We hope that this volume
and the additional electronic material will inspire and facilitate the future work of
others in education research, monitoring, and evaluation.
The editors of this volume were involved in the preparation and analysis of dif-
ferent ILSAs in the past and were responsible for assembling, trialing, and evaluat-
ing the context assessment for PISA 2015 under contract with the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). We therefore use PISA 2015 as
an example to relate the general and sometimes abstract discussions in this volume
to a real-life study. This choice provides an opportunity to incorporate field trial
instruments into the publication and to relate all theoretical and methodological
considerations to online material that can be used in further research, as well as to
official OECD publications for PISA 2015 (framework, questionnaire instruments,
and data). All authors in this volume were involved in questionnaire development
and all contributed to the context assessment in their field of expertise.
This volume is divided into an introductory part and three subsequent parts,
which address several thematic frameworks for a number of policy topics. In the
introductory Part I, three chapters first summarize particulars of international con-
text assessments, the changes that have been made to context assessment over time,
and methodological considerations. A fourth chapter introduces the PISA 2015 field
trial from the context assessment perspective.

ix
x Preface

Parts II, III, and IV of this volume include a series of chapters on student back-
ground, student education outcomes beyond achievement, and learning in schools.
Each chapter presents a thematic framework for one topic in EER and a literature
review of relevant theoretical concepts and their practical and policy relevance. The
chapters also discuss which constructs should ideally be assessed to enable report-
ing on the particular topic in sufficient breadth (e.g., to enable country comparisons
on different topics) and detail (e.g., to link them to student performance). In addi-
tion, the chapters discuss possible limitations that result from practical or policy
considerations involved in international school effectiveness assessments. Although
the reviews refer to the EER literature in general, and often take into account exam-
ples from different ILSAs, most examples refer to the PISA 2015 cycle.
A digital appendix to this volume contains the questionnaire material that was
developed for the field trial of PISA 2015. The “Datenbank zur Qualität von Schule”
(a questionnaire repository on school quality) at the German Institute for International
Educational Research in Frankfurt, Germany (http://daqs.fachportal-paedagogik.
de/), hosts questionnaire material in its English and French source versions, as well
as the nationally adapted and translated versions of countries participating in the
study. Additionally, the repository lists statistics to evaluate the functioning of each
question at the international and national levels, based on field trial data.
We hope that this volume promotes future secondary analyses with ILSA data;
facilitates the development of further educational effectiveness research, monitor-
ing, and evaluation studies; helps to justify conclusions and recommendations based
on ILSA results; adds transparency to the discussions and further development of
ILSAs; and thus contributes to the interplay between EER and ILSAs.

Frankfurt, Germany Susanne Kuger

Eckhard Klieme
Nina Jude
USA David Kaplan
Contents

Part I Introduction
1 Dimensions of Context Assessment........................................................ 3
Susanne Kuger and Eckhard Klieme
2 The Assessment of Learning Contexts in PISA .................................... 39
Nina Jude
3 The Methodology of PISA: Past, Present, and Future ........................ 53
David Kaplan and Susanne Kuger
4 An Introduction to the PISA 2015
Questionnaire Field Trial: Study Design
and Analysis Procedures ......................................................................... 75
Susanne Kuger, Nina Jude, Eckhard Klieme, and David Kaplan

Part II Student Background

5 Social Background .................................................................................. 117
Rainer Watermann, Kai Maaz, Sonja Bayer, and Nina Roczen
6 Ethnicity and Migration ......................................................................... 147
Svenja Vieluf
7 Early Childhood Learning Experiences................................................ 179
Yvonne Anders, Hans-Günther Roßbach, and Susanne Kuger
8 Parental Support and Involvement in School ....................................... 209
Silke Hertel and Nina Jude

Part III Outcomes of Education Beyond Achievement

9 Bias Assessment and Prevention in Noncognitive
Outcome Measures in Context Assessments ......................................... 229
Fons J.R. van de Vijver and Jia He

xi
xii Contents

10 General Noncognitive Outcomes ........................................................... 255

Jonas P. Bertling, Tamara Marksteiner,
and Patrick C. Kyllonen
11 Dispositions for Collaborative Problem Solving .................................. 283
Kathleen Scalise, Maida Mustafic, and Samuel Greiff
12 Science-Related Outcomes: Attitudes,
Motivation, Value Beliefs, Strategies ..................................................... 301
Anja Schiepe-Tiska, Nina Roczen, Katharina Müller,
Manfred Prenzel, and Jonathan Osborne
13 ICT Engagement in Learning Environments ....................................... 331
Frank Goldhammer, Gabriela Gniewosz, and Johannes Zylka

Part IV Learning in Schools

14 A Dynamic Perspective on School
Learning Environment and Its Impact
on Student Learning Outcomes ............................................................. 355
Leonidas Kyriakides and Bert P.M. Creemers
15 Building More Effective Education Systems ........................................ 375
Gregory Elacqua
16 Curriculum and Learning Time
in International School Achievement Studies ....................................... 395
Susanne Kuger
17 Science Teaching and Learning in Schools:
Theoretical and Empirical Foundations
for Investigating Classroom-Level Processes........................................ 423
Katharina Müller, Manfred Prenzel, Tina Seidel,
Anja Schiepe-Tiska, and Marit Kjærnsli
18 Teacher Qualifications and Professional Knowledge ........................... 447
Franz Klingebiel and Eckhard Klieme
19 Assessment and Evaluation in Educational Contexts .......................... 469
Sonja Bayer, Eckhard Klieme, and Nina Jude

Acknowledgements ......................................................................................... 489

 Part I
Introduction
Chapter 1
Dimensions of Context Assessment

Susanne Kuger and Eckhard Klieme

Contents
1.1 Introduction 4
1.2 Learning in Contexts Worldwide 7
1.2.1 Taxonomies of Topics and Constructs 7
1.2.2 Common Content Areas 9
1.2.2.1 Education Outcomes 11
1.2.2.2 Student Background 12
1.2.2.3 Teaching and Learning Processes 13
1.2.2.4 School Policies and Governance 13
1.3 Expansion of the Common Content 14
1.3.1 Rationale for Expansion 14
1.3.2 Expanding Target Groups 16
1.3.3 Expanding the Student Sample 17
1.3.4 Expanding Available Data Sources 18
1.4 Increasing the Analytical Power of ILSAs 19
1.4.1 Reusing Different ILSA Products 20
1.4.2 Broadening the Variety of Analytical Approaches 20
1.4.3 Combining Different ILSAs in Secondary Analyses 21
1.5 Particulars of International Context Assessments 25
1.5.1 Breadth and Variety of Topics and Assessment Formats 25
1.5.2 Heterogeneity of Learning Contexts from a Global Perspective 27
1.6 ILSAs for EER and EER for ILSAs 30
References 31

Abstract This chapter provides an overarching framework to context assessment

in international large-scale assessments (ILSAs), and applies it to discuss relation-
ships between context and cognitive assessment. One of the most critical differ-
ences between these two types of assessment is the variety of topics, perspectives,
and levels in the education systems that need to be taken into account. This chapter
first points out similarities in context assessments across ILSA programs, thus defin-
ing a set of common content in context assessment. Although there are important
conceptual similarities in context assessments across ILSAs, there are good reasons

S. Kuger (*) • E. Klieme

Department for Educational Quality and Evaluation, German Institute for International
Educational Research (DIPF), Frankfurt, Germany
e-mail: kuger@dipf.de; klieme@dipf.de

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 3

S. Kuger et al. (eds.), Assessing Contexts of Learning, Methodology of
Educational Measurement and Assessment, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-45357-6_1
4 S. Kuger and E. Klieme

why this lowest common denominator should be enriched according to the respec-
tive study goals and designs of the different programs. This chapter discusses some
possible directions and further, provides suggestions as to how the scope of ILSAs
may be increased to provide better information about education research and policy
in the future. Although this framework model is applicable to learning contexts
world-wide, context assessments in ILSAs need to take into account the many simi-
larities and differences of education systems world-wide. A final aim of this chapter
therefore is to discuss some critical issues that arise from an international perspec-
tive in ILSAs.

1.1 Introduction

Educational effectiveness research (EER) strives to explain education: that is,

teaching and learning in school (and to a certain degree also outside of school) and
their effects on a variety of student outcomes. In many researchers’ minds, the ulti-
mate goal would be to find universal mechanisms and models that facilitate healthy
cognitive and socio-emotional development in students. At best, these models
would work in any classroom, any school, and any education system in any cultural
setting; they could be applied to all students in general and could even explain dif-
ferential results. Knowledge of such models and their respective mechanisms could
then be turned into teaching units, teacher training programs and education policy.
There are many reasons why it seems debatable whether such a universal model
exists. One of the greatest problems that researchers in EER are facing is the com-
plexity of their units of analysis. Students are complex psychological systems that
entail a great variety of motives, actions, beliefs, and prior results, and learning typi-
cally involves the interaction of a person’s individual preconditions with other peo-
ple in certain contexts. Furthermore, people are involved in all kind of roles in the
education system: as learners, teachers, administrative staff, policy makers and
many more. Or as Berliner (2002, p.19), phrased it: “Doing science and implement-
ing scientific findings are so difficult in education because humans in schools are
embedded in complex and changing networks of social interaction.” In the study of
why a student learns, what, when and how, such individual factors have to be taken
into account, similarly to aspects of the system and society that this individual inter-
acts with. Berliner, underlining the dynamic nature of all agents and all interactions,
even mentions the temporal perspective.
In general, school effectiveness research is well aware of these dependencies,
and takes them into account. Two approaches are discernible in the EER literature.
The first is to summarize existing EER results in literature reviews and meta-
analyses. Hattie’s (2009) study is actually the most prominent example, but there
have been many more (e.g., Kyriakides et al. 2010; Scheerens 2000; Seidel and
Shavelson 2007). Some literature reviews introduce taxonomies to organize the
1 Context Assessment 5

multitude of researched factors (Scheerens and Bosker 1997; Scheerens et al. 2005),
or even to provide comprehensive theoretical models of educational effectiveness,
such as the Dynamic Model developed by Creemers and Kyriakides (2008, 2010).
Typically, these reviews summarize study results obtained in individual studies in
single (or few) countries at a single point in time, and there is a tendency to over-
generalize these fractured research results, and their applicability, to all students in
all school types and school systems at all times. To date only a few attempts have
been made to increase generalizability or results by actually including different
school systems, teaching traditions and cultural settings in research studies, so as to
empirically compare effects across countries. The exceptions are international
large-scale assessments (ILSAs), which are best known for their use in system-wide
educational monitoring. Due to their long history and their relatively large number
of participating countries, the following most prominent examples (in alphabetical
order; for a more comprehensive list see Schwippert and Lenkeit 2012), cover edu-
cation worldwide, and will be discussed repeatedly in this chapter:
• Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS)
• Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
• Trends in International Mathematics and Science (TIMSS)
Furthermore, there are ILSAs that cover additional regions of the world, or non-
student samples. The most influential ILSA programs with such a focus are, most
likely:
• Programme d’Analyse des Systèmes Educatifs de la CONFEMEN (the standing
committee of ministers of education of francophone African countries; PASEC)
• Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC)
• The Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality
(SACMEQ)
• The Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS)
• Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M)
The overarching and initial goal of such ILSAs is to provide indicators on the
effectiveness, equity, and efficiency of educational systems (Bottani and Tuijnman
1994), to set benchmarks for international comparison, to stimulate curriculum
development, and to monitor trends over time (Klieme and Kuger 2016; Mullis et al.
2009a). Consequently, these programs have attracted attention in many countries
and have exerted sometimes far-reaching influence on education policy. In addition,
researchers increasingly draw on the results of these assessments to study, on the
one hand, the universality and generalizability of certain findings in educational
effectiveness and, on the other hand, the respective national, regional, cultural, and
other group-specific features that may moderate universal mechanisms (Hiebert
et al. 2003). This volume is intended as a bridge between EER and ILSA.
In the context of this book we consider ILSAs as international assessments of
education topics that target large and representative samples of students and/or
teachers, as well as other stakeholders in education such as school principals or parents.
6 S. Kuger and E. Klieme

Here, the term “assessment” is not restricted to tests addressing achievement, compe-
tencies or other cognitive outcomes. Even in studies that are well-known for mea-
suring student achievement and literacy, such as PIRLS and PISA, the vast majority
of measures are used to contextualize these cognitive outcomes, adding both non-
cognitive outcomes (e.g., student motivation and well-being) and measures of struc-
tures and processes in education. This wider range of measures is in the following
discussion called “context assessment”. OECD’s (Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development) TALIS is included in the term ILSA because it
covers learning contexts at school-, classroom- and teacher-level, and includes the
assessment of valuable noncognitive teacher outcomes (e.g., self-efficacy). This
chapter uses the term “ILSA programs” (e.g., PISA, TIMSS) while also referring to
individual “ILSA studies or cycles” (e.g., PISA 2015, TIMSS 2011).
The relationships—i.e., potential dependencies, contributions, and benefits—
between EER and ILSAs are mutual in nature (Klieme 2012): On the one hand, a
sound framework of context assessment of any ILSA study must take into account
theoretical considerations, modeling approaches and research results in EER to
develop a meaningful system of reporting indicators (Bryke and Hermanson 1994;
Kaplan and Elliott 1997). Research on educational effectiveness, on the other hand,
can inform ILSAs in two ways. First, the description of education in different cul-
tures, school systems, and school contexts that is provided by ILSA studies can
inspire EER to discover new fields of research. National and international patterns
or regional peculiarities in ILSA data are easily accessible through screening pub-
licly available ILSA data, and can trigger research questions that lead to the careful
development of smaller, targeted EER studies.
Second, ILSAs carefully develop research instruments and methodology that
may be used in further studies both within and across countries. The high quality
standards typically involved in the preparation and implementation of ILSAs, and
the large intercultural sample assessed, provide EER with high quality, culturally
adapted, policy-relevant material in a large number of languages. Therefore, ILSAs
offer an unmatched source of ready-to-use material for EER that has been devel-
oped and refined under strict quality guidelines and discussed by education, policy,
questionnaire, and survey method experts.
This chapter further reflects on this relation between EER and ILSAs. It first
summarizes taxonomies, to organize the content of context assessments in ILSAs
and the similarities of content across studies (Sect. 1.2). This chapter further dis-
cusses how to enlarge the scope and value of ILSAs for education policy makers
and researchers by either expanding and developing the existing ILSAs further
(Sect. 1.3) or by making better use of their already existing output (Sect. 1.4).
Finally, this chapter points out major differences of context assessment and cogni-
tive assessments in ILSAs, and how they influence the planning, preparation and
implementation of context assessments in ILSAs (Sect.1.5).
1 Context Assessment 7

1.2 Learning in Contexts Worldwide

The vast majority of research in educational effectiveness today refers to socio-

constructivist or co-constructivist theories of learning. The learning individual is
conceptualized as an active creator of his or her knowledge, capabilities, and skills,
and learning is stimulated by or takes place in interactions with the learner’s social
and material environment (Dewey 1910, 1938; Piaget 1950; Vygotsky 1977). The
environment therefore is critical: it may support or alternatively constrain thriving,
healthy development. Simultaneously, all external influences that stimulate learning
and development can be understood as contributors to this cumulative process: i.e.,
a person may be stimulated in all kinds of everyday situations and settings. Learning
and development take place in informal settings such as the family and the peer
group, in formal settings such as school or university, and finally also in non-formal
settings, as with sports teams and out-of-school courses (La Belle 1982). These
environments and agents harbor a great variety of factors that influence the learning
process. Section 1.2.1 taxonomizes this multitude of factors, and Sect. 1.2.2 then
lists the most frequently studied concepts in EER in general, and in ILSA programs
in particular.

1.2.1 Taxonomies of Topics and Constructs

Critical variables in EER have long been grouped into input and output factors
(Reynolds et al. 2000). Such a framework relates education to a production function
in an organization: i.e. it establishes an analogy to economic models and assumes
that certain input factors condition the creation of certain outputs. This very simpli-
fied view was then expanded to the Context-Input-Process-Output model (CIPO-
model; Purves 1987; Scheerens and Bosker 1997). The CIPO model groups together
factors of more distal and proximal conditions of education (context and input),
education processes and outcomes. In this model the term “context” is used in a
restricted sense, only referring to economic, social, and cultural factors outside of
schools, compared to the more comprehensive approach taken in the present chapter.
The advantage of this CIPO framework is that it covers the wide variety of topics
in EER:
– (C) general societal conditions
– (I) conditions of the education system, and school, classroom, and individual
(e.g., vertical and horizontal differentiation of the school system, organizational
structure of a school, classroom composition of the student body, students’
cultural, ethnic, and socio-economic background)
– (P) educational processes in diverse learning environments (e.g., system-wide
evaluation procedures, school leadership and teacher collaboration practices,
teaching activities and learning opportunities in classrooms, parental involve-
ment in student learning)
8 S. Kuger and E. Klieme

– (O) different education outcomes, such as student achievement (e.g., mathematics

or reading performance, school leaving certificates) or other, so-called “noncog-
nitive” outcomes (e.g., students’ learning motivation).
It must be noted however that the label “model” slightly overburdens the appli-
cability of the CIPO framework. Its primary contribution to EER is the provision of
overarching categories that help to organize individual factors, but the CIPO frame-
work cannot be used as a fully-fledged theoretical model that prompts research
hypotheses about mechanisms and influencing paths among the incorporated
factors or categories (Klieme and Vieluf 2013). The applied heuristic in the CIPO
model is too simplified to account for the reciprocity of learning and inputs, pro-
cesses, and outcomes. Most importantly, it applies a cross-sectional grid to the most
relevant factors in teaching and learning, but cannot take into account the reciprocal
interrelatedness of outcomes of and inputs to education in a longitudinal
perspective.
For example, student motivation would be labeled as an educational outcome;
yet, motivation conditions future engagement in education, and thus needs to be
viewed as an input factor for future participation in education. The CIPO model
therefore suits cross-sectional studies with a theory-based framework that focus on
achievement as an outcome measure of education and on non-achievement person
characteristics, as well as context features such as input and process conditioning
factors.
The influencing context factors can, furthermore, be grouped from an organiza-
tional point of view into three education system levels. This approach groups
together factors on the system level (e.g., on the level of society or the education
system as a whole), the school setting level (e.g., in early child care centers, schools,
or universities), and finally, the individual level (e.g., a student’s or teacher’s indi-
vidual characteristics). Such a distinction not only facilitates adequate research
designs and the selection of appropriate methodology, but furthermore suggests rel-
evant agents and stakeholders that need to be considered in studying a certain topic.
Finally, because learning in general and, in particular education in schools, typi-
cally take place in a certain school subject domain, a further distinction can be made
between domain-general factors and domain-specific factors. Due to their impor-
tance for school and overall life success, the most frequently discussed and most
extensively researched domains are mathematics, science, and reading. This general
tendency in EER is also represented in ILSAs: PASEC, PISA 2003 and 2012,
SACMEQ I-IV, and TIMSS’ focus on mathematics; PISA 2006 and 2015 and all
TIMSS research science outcomes; PASEC, PIRLS, PISA 2000 and 2009, and
SACMEQ I–IV assess students’ reading performance. Some studies additionally
assess domain-transcending cognitive outcomes: e.g., financial literacy; (OECD
2014a), problem solving (OECD 2014b) and cross-cultural competencies (OECD
2004), or even focus on such outcomes: e.g., the International Computer and
Information Literacy Study (ICILS; Fraillon et al. 2013). Noncognitive education out-
comes can be described using a similar split. General noncognitive outcomes are,
1 Context Assessment 9

for example, students’ well-being and life satisfaction, general value beliefs, health
or working habits, while domain-specific noncognitive outcomes include mathe-
matics or science self-efficacy, interests, attitudes towards science and the relation-
ship of education and career aspirations to certain school subjects. Resources can
also be dedicated to education in general (e.g., school facilities) or to a certain sub-
ject (e.g., textbooks, library, laboratory staff, and teachers), and education processes
can be either domain-specific (e.g., teaching a certain subject) or general (e.g., allo-
cating resources to schools, school climate, school and system evaluation).
Typically, ILSA studies gather information on the majority of these categories:
i.e., both domain-general and domain-specific information (across and) on system,
school, and individual levels, about input factors, processes, and education outcomes.
Although the study design and the main research question of an ILSA heavily
influence the exact specification of test and questionnaire material, there is a small-
est common denominator: a set of information of such essential value to EER that it
is included in almost all ILSA studies in a similar way. The following subsection
provides a description of this set.

1.2.2 Common Content Areas

The majority of studies in EER and ILSAs include a set of common material in their
context assessment, independent of their study goals, design, or sampling strategy.
There are three degrees of commonality. First, there are identical questions across
some ILSAs (mainly across related ILSAs from the same organization); examples
are questions on participant’s gender or educational background. Identical questions
typically target standard socio-demographic information about the participants or
the structural conditions of learning environments. A second degree of commonality
is at the conceptual level. This is more frequently found in questions seeking more
detailed background information about the participant and domain-general content
areas. For example, all ILSAs with student participants assess parental education
background, albeit in very different ways (e.g., asking the student or his parents),
and many assess learning motivation. A third degree of commonality can be seen in
parallel assessments of certain constructs. As explained above, some features of the
learning context can be assessed by targeting specific domains or conditions. While
the wording of such a construct may be customized to the domain of a certain study,
it may still be parallel to the wording in studies that target other domains. For exam-
ple, while a study on science achievement assesses “interest in science”, a study on
math achievement assesses “interest in mathematics”. Such a parallelism enables
later comparisons of relations between achievement and “domain-specific interest”.
Another example could be assessing reasons for school choice in a parent sample
that chose a certain school for their children’s education and in a teacher sample that
chose a future workplace.
10 S. Kuger and E. Klieme

The following four sections include a synthesis of common content areas as

they were included in recent ILSAs (Klieme and Kuger 2016; Mullis et al. 2009a, b).
The four sections were built by roughly sorting the common content areas along the
CIPO model and the levels in education:
• “School and student background”: School location, type and size of school,
amount and source of resources (incl. information and communication technol-
ogy – ICT), social, ethnic, and academic composition at school level; class size
and teacher qualification at classroom level; gender, SES (parental education and
occupation, home possessions, number of books at home), language and migra-
tion background, grade level, pre-primary education, age at school entry at indi-
vidual student level.
• “Teaching and learning processes”: School climate (teacher and student behav-
ior) at school level; disciplinary climate, teacher support, cognitive challenge at
classroom level; grade repetition, program attended, learning time at school
(mandatory lessons and additional instruction), out-of-school learning at indi-
vidual student level.
• “School policies and education governance”: Decision making, horizontal and
vertical differentiation at education system level; programs offered, admission
and grouping policies, allocated learning time, additional learning time and
study support, extra-curricular activities, professional development, leadership,
parental involvement, assessment/evaluation/accountability policies at school
level.
• “Education outcomes”: Drop-out rate at school level; domain-general noncogni-
tive outcomes (e.g., achievement motivation, well-being in school), domain-
specific noncognitive outcomes (motivation, domain-related beliefs and
strategies, self-related beliefs, domain-related behavior) at individual student
level.
The division of context and input factors in the CIPO model was relaxed, in
order to present the content along more natural learning environments (e.g., family,
school). Unfortunately, the commonality across ILSAs is seldom an exact match
(first degree of commonality) leaving each study with its own realization—i.e.,
question, wording, and design—thereby limiting comparability across studies.
Much more frequent are parallelisms on a conceptual level (third degree). A com-
parison of study results and approaches to pooling data from different studies would
be greatly facilitated if there were more attempts to harmonize context assessments
of constructs in the common content area and to implement identical questions in all
ILSAs. The examples in the following Sects. 1.2.2.1, 1.2.2.2, 1.2.2.3, and 1.2.2.4 all
refer to constructs included in the field trial of PISA 2015.
1 Context Assessment 11

1.2.2.1 Education Outcomes1

Educating a person means fostering his or her individual development as a unique,

self-determined, knowledgeable person who gradually gains in ability to participate
in society. Learning is a longitudinal process that accumulates experiences over
time and in many different contexts. One shortcoming of most ILSAs is that typi-
cally they are cross-sectional studies measuring students’ attainment and perfor-
mance, as well as their contexts of learning, at a certain time point (either a certain
grade or age range).2 It is therefore not possible to document developmental pro-
cesses in ILSAs, but one can at least catch a snapshot of a person’s or a population’s
state at a certain point in time. This particularity in study design results from the
main or initial purpose: to serve as a monitoring tool. Furthermore, this is the most
important reason why data from ILSAs can contribute little information in respect
of causality of effects. In fact, strong theoretical frameworks are necessary to legiti-
mize the relating of information about individual, school, and system background to
student achievement. To learn more about individual and collective (societal) learn-
ing processes, and to enable causal claims about the nature of learning and develop-
ment, study designs need to be developed further, and should at least incorporate a
longitudinal perspective (for further discussion see also Kaplan and Kuger 2016,
Chap. 3 in this volume).
Naturally, each cross-sectional snapshot includes an assessment of cognitive out-
comes such as school achievement, test scores, literacies, and skills. In addition to
these cognitive outcomes, other factors are also important. Success in school—and
in life—depends on being committed, sharing values and beliefs, respecting and
understanding others, being motivated to learn and to collaborate, and being able to
regulate one’s own learning behavior. These constructs can be perceived as prereq-
uisites of cognitive learning, but may also themselves be judged as goals of educa-
tion, as the OECD project Defining and Selecting Key Competencies (DeSeCo) has
elaborated (Rychen and Salganik 2003). Educational and econometric research
have shown that noncognitive factors are important for individual development, as
well as for success in life and well-being, and thus have an impact on individuals
and society alike (Heckman et al. 2006; Almlund et al. 2011).
Consequently, ILSAs more and more include noncognitive outcomes like atti-
tudes, beliefs, motivation and aspirations, and learning-related behaviors such as
self-regulation, strategies and time invested by learners, but also outcomes related
to teachers and other agents in education. The assessed constructs may be of a gen-
eral nature, such as the achievement motivation and well-being of students, teacher
education beliefs and drop-out rates of schools, or related to the domains of the

1
This and the following three sections were based on the OECD draft framework for context
assessments for PISA 2015 (2013: http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/PISA-2015-draft-
questionnaire-framework.pdf), which was authored by the authors of this chapter.
2
For early exceptions to international longitudinal studies run on limited sets of countries and with
heavy methodological challenges, see Burstein (1993), Olmert and Weikart (1995); for current
preparations for a longitudinal ILSA see OECD (2015).
12 S. Kuger and E. Klieme

cognitive assessment, such as reading engagement, interest in mathematics, or

enjoyment of science. Domain-specific noncognitive outcomes are—for example,
students’ self-efficacy beliefs: i.e., the strength of their belief in being able to solve
tasks, exams or test items—have been shown to be a strong correlate of student
achievement, both within and between countries. Since the main outcomes of ILSA
are typically at the student level, most of these constructs are assessed via student
questionnaires, but some are also included in teacher or school-level questionnaires
(e.g., school drop-out rate).

1.2.2.2 Student Background

In order to understand educational careers, and to study different equity issues

within and across countries, individual and family background variables such as the
student’s gender, socio-economic status, and ethnic background have to be taken
into account. The distribution of educational opportunities and outcomes depending
on these background variables shows different degrees of provision of equal
opportunities.
Equity in opportunities has become a particular focus of the PISA studies. Partly
this is due to the goal and nature of the survey, and its design as a yield study of
15-year-olds. Another reason is the detailed assessment of family background,
socio-economic status, and immigration background. A lot of effort went into the
definition and operationalization of individual student background indicators, which
finally led to the establishment of a powerful, integrated indicator of students’ eco-
nomic, social, and cultural status (ESCS; Willms 2006). Nevertheless, equity in
opportunities is an important reporting indicator in any ILSA, and each study has
come up with a set of measures to gather relevant information. In order to facilitate
trend reporting on this topic in repeated studies (e.g., TIMSS or PISA), relevant
information needs to be assessed in as stable a way as possible (for a literature
review and a detailed discussion of measures of students’ family background, socio-
economic status, and immigration background, please refer to Chap. 5). In addition,
information on parental support helps our understanding of how formal education
and family background interact in promoting student learning.
Besides student and family characteristics, individual educational prerequisites
and pathways hold important background information for research and reporting in
EER. In recent years, researchers, and public debate in many countries, have
stressed the importance of early childhood education and educational pathways in
elementary and early secondary school (Allen et al. 2009; Blau and Curie 2006;
Brophy 2006; Cunha et al. 2006). Any ILSA should therefore gather basic informa-
tion on students’ pathways through pre-primary, primary, and secondary education,
such as duration of pre-primary education or grade retention.
In addition to individual student background, the social, ethnic, and academic
composition of the school he or she is attending has an impact on learning processes
and outcomes. Therefore, ILSAs need to obtain information on school characteristics
such as the student body and teaching force, resources, and general framing conditions.
1 Context Assessment 13

PISA for example, has long included school type, location, and size, and uses aggre-
gated student data at the school level to represent student composition.

1.2.2.3 Teaching and Learning Processes

School-based instruction is the core process of formal, systematic education.

Therefore, an ILSA needs information on teaching, learning, and organization in
schools. To increase the explanatory power of ILSAs, the teaching and learning
context assessment typically focuses on the domain of assessment and thus, varies
across studies. The knowledge base of EER (Creemers and Kyriakides 2008;
Scheerens and Bosker 1997) allows for the identification of core factors: teachers’
qualifications, teaching practices and classroom climate, learning time and learning
opportunities provided both within and without school. For teaching processes, the
international EER literature points out three basic dimensions with high predictive
validity for student learning, interest, and motivation (Decristan et al. 2015; Klieme
et al. 2009; Pianta and Hamre 2009): (i) structure and classroom management, (ii)
teacher support, (iii) cognitive challenge. Although there is considerable agreement
on the overarching importance of these three, addressing teacher and teaching-
related factors depends heavily on the design of a study. For example, retrospective
information is less reliable than information about the present school year. A study
therefore needs to define the time frame that is included in the students’ reports.
Moreover, some studies (e.g. TIMSS), sample whole school classes but only at one
grade level, while in other studies (e.g., PISA), the sample is age-based and includes
students from different grades and classes. Thus, the number of students per class-
room in the assessment is rather small. Third, the domain of assessment may vary
across studies (e.g., science in PISA 2006 vs. Reading in PIRLS 2006) or across
cycles (math in PISA 2012 vs. science in PISA 2015), and the respective set of
teaching and learning factors should vary accordingly: Cognitive challenge in class-
rooms has been represented by teachers’ stimulation of reading engagement (PISA
2009), Opportunities-to-learn (OTL) question types, experience with applied math-
ematical tasks (PISA 2012), and inquiry-based teaching and learning (PISA 2006,
PISA 2015).

1.2.2.4 School Policies and Governance

EER can make a major contribution to monitoring education—the initial and most
important goal of ILSAs—by embedding results in EER research and developing
policy advice in response. As policy makers have limited direct impact on teaching
and learning processes, EER delivers information on school-level factors that may
help improve schools, and thus indirectly improve student learning. As with teacher
and teaching variables, school effectiveness research has built a strong knowledge
base showing that “essential supports” promote school effectiveness (Bryk et al.
2010; see also Creemers and Reezigt 1997; Scheerens and Bosker 1997):
14 S. Kuger and E. Klieme

professional capacity, with a focus on professional development; a well-organized

curriculum; leadership and school management; parental involvement; school cli-
mate (truthful interactions between stakeholders, clear norms and shared values,
high achievement expectations) and the use of assessment and evaluation for
improvement. All these factors should best be addressed as domain-general pro-
cesses on the school level and preferably one would collect information from differ-
ent perspectives (e.g., teachers and school administration). In addition, school-level
support for teaching the domain of assessment, such as the availability of libraries,
provision of laboratory space, ICT equipment, and a coherent school curriculum,
should be included.
Besides process information at the school level, EER also covers research at the
education system level, and thus addresses issues related to governance on the sys-
tem level (Hanushek and Wößmann 2011; Wößmann et al. 2007). School autonomy
and accountability practices describe the main aspects of governance: namely, the
distribution of power and control between central and local stakeholders. Allocation,
selection and choice, as well as assessment and evaluation, are the basic processes
used by policy makers and/or school administrators to control school quality, to
monitor and to foster school improvement. Some of this information is best assessed
at system level, but a large proportion is still gathered in school-level ILSA
questionnaires.
Although this list of context factors already seems rather comprehensive, context
assessments of ILSAs typically include even more constructs, in a much greater
variety of topics. The following section discusses the purpose of such expansions
and lists some examples of successful expansions regarding target groups, study
design, and data sources.

1.3 Expansion of the Common Content

There are good reasons to include additional content in context assessments of

ILSAs. It can even be profitable to include additional target groups other than the
students, teachers or schools, and even additional data sources other than the well-
established questionnaires. But the decision as to which content should be included
depends on the study’s domain of assessment, sample and design. The following
four sections elaborate further on some reasons (Sect. 1.3.1), target groups (Sect.
1.3.2 and Sect. 1.3.3) and sources (Sect. 1.3.4) of data expansion.

1.3.1 Rationale for Expansion

As mentioned above, the overarching goal of ILSAs is to provide indicators on the

effectiveness, equity, and efficiency of educational systems (Bottani and Tuijnman
1994). An expansion of the variety of constructs covered in ILSA context
1 Context Assessment 15

assessments can therefore serve two different purposes: First, it can broaden the
variety of topics reflected in the indicator system of the framework and thus increase
the number of policy topics that the ILSA serves (horizontal expansion) or second,
it can deepen our understanding of the theoretical model behind an existent set of
indicators (vertical expansion; Bryk and Hermanson 1994).
Horizontal expansion broadens the range of topics included in an ILSA context
assessment. This could either imply that participants answer more questions that are
closely related to each other (e.g., asking students not only about their heritage lan-
guage but also about their language preferences inside and outside school, their
subjective perceptions of the value of bilingualism, etc.). As another example, a
horizontal expansion could introduce new topics of assessment (e.g., recent cycles
of PISA included more constructs on student’s well-being and personality traits than
did older cycles). In both cases, horizontal expansion increases the policy outreach
of a study by delivering information on more topics than before.
Vertical expansion increases the depth and detail of information on a topic that is
already included in the common content areas. More-detailed assessment of a cer-
tain topic can help to improve the precision and validity of the assessment. For
example, a topic could be split up into more than one question to cover several
facets of a construct (e.g., the existence of school evaluation can be assessed with a
very broad yes/no question, or go into more detail to include questions on purposes,
measures, time points and uses of school evaluation). As another example, a vertical
expansion could ask a question from multiple perspectives to triangulate informa-
tion (e.g., both the principal of a school and the teachers might have valuable but not
necessarily congruent opinions on the school’s leadership). Most importantly, a ver-
tical expansion helps to cover a theoretical model of education effectiveness more
precisely, and thus could increase its explanatory power. Keeves and Lietz’s (2011)
observation of a trend towards more vertical expansion across context assessments
of ILSAs in the last decades, without corresponding endeavors to assemble the
respective EER background, is an important motive for this volume. The topical
chapters in Parts II-IV each compile partial model frameworks for one topic of
EER, to encourage further research and more in-depth modeling in this important
area.
Given that, typically, each ILSA sets aside a well specified, limited amount of
time for context assessment, the two directions of expansion are at conflict with
each other. An expansion in either direction requires additional testing time, and one
can either broaden the number of topics included in context assessment or else
increase the detail and precision of assessment. It is not possible to expand content
in both directions and still keep within the traditional time limitations. A rotated
context questionnaire design was implemented in PISA 2012 that can, in principle,
provide for horizontal and vertical expansion. But the implementation of a rotated
design for the context questionnaire in an ILSA leads to a number of methodologi-
cal challenges that are currently still under debate (see Adams et al. 2013; Kaplan
and Su 2016).
16 S. Kuger and E. Klieme

1.3.2 Expanding Target Groups

Typically, ILSA programs assess data from students and schools. Students are tested
using a battery of test items to assess their performance in the study domain; in a
second step they fill out context assessment questionnaires. In the majority of stud-
ies, school questionnaires are filled in by the school principal or by any other eligi-
ble school representative. Although these two groups of participants can probably
provide reliable and essential information about students’ education, certain limita-
tions underlie this information. There may be, for example, time restrictions, sub-
jectivity bias, and limitations on knowledge, to name just a few. This and the
following section therefore, discuss some innovative ideas on how to expand these
target groups and data sources to allow for the assessment of more and more precise
content in alternative formats.
Several ILSAs already include additional target groups, to learn more about
teaching and learning in school and at home. The most frequently approached addi-
tional target groups are teachers and parents. Participants from both groups can add
valuable insights into background information (context and input), education pro-
cesses and outcomes in school, out-of-school and at home. Teacher questionnaires
have been included in all cycles of TIMSS and PIRLS assessments and were first
introduced to PISA in the 2015 cycle. Teachers are valuable sources of information
about the curriculum in a certain school subject, about classroom teaching pro-
cesses, teacher cooperation and teaching resources in their school; about their initial
teacher training and professional development, their teaching goals, interests, and
enthusiasm, teaching incentives, assessment and evaluation practices, and many
more topics related to teacher background and everyday teaching processes. In
addition to teacher questionnaires directly implemented in a student ILSA, results
from the TALIS or the TEDS-M can provide relevant information about teachers at
the country level. Under certain conditions, student data from one ILSA and teacher
data from another, can even be statistically linked (Kaplan and McCarthy 2013).
Valuable information can also be gathered from students’ parents. Parent ques-
tionnaires have been included in TIMSS, PIRLS and PISA assessments for several
cycles already. Parents are most frequently asked to provide information on early
childhood education, previous and current home learning activities and resources,
parental beliefs about education and future career paths, additional family back-
ground information, their cooperation with their child’s school, and educational
decision making, to name just a few (Hoover et al. 2013; Klieme and Kuger 2016).
A further source of information lies at the system level: curriculum and policy
experts could provide information about allocated resources to the educational sys-
tem, about policy reforms and the intended curriculum. Unfortunately, such ques-
tionnaires are not included in all ILSAs (e.g., Hoover et al. 2013).
1 Context Assessment 17

1.3.3 Expanding the Student Sample

Another expansion of target groups has been successfully implemented in several

countries already: systematic oversampling nationally relevant groups, to represent
certain regions, and in longitudinal add-ons. National oversamples can create quasi-
experimental designs, target particularly vulnerable minority groups, and represent
different federal and cultural (e.g., language) regions, or subsamples of high policy
interest. Oversampling to represent federal systems or language regions has long
been implemented in many countries (e.g., Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany,
Mexico, Spain, Switzerland (OECD 2005, 2012, 2014c)), as has oversampling of
certain subsamples of students (e.g., 9th graders in Germany, 12th graders in
Mexico, 19- and 17-year olds in Poland).
One could argue that the repeated participation of countries in ILSAs such as
TIMSS, PIRLS, and PISA (there have been only two TALIS cycles so far, 2008 and
2013, and the different cycles of SACMEQ differ to an extent that cannot be con-
sidered repeated assessments) simulates a “longitudinal” design at country level.
Indeed, combining data from different assessment cycles can be a valuable source
of information to answer a certain type of research question—e.g., looking at sys-
tem changes over time or comparing students’ behavior to a changing curriculum
across different cohorts. Successful approaches are already documented in the field
(e.g., Lenkeit 2012; Liu et al. 2014) and will probably increase in the years to come.
It must be noted however that using cross-sectional data sets in a quasi-longitudinal
design raises a number of unsolved issues, particularly but not exclusively in regard
to the feasibility and legitimization of modeling techniques for cognitive outcome
measures (e.g., Gebhardt and Adams 2007; Robitzsch 2010). Yet, implementing
ILSAs every few years with a parallel design and representative samples cannot
replace a true longitudinal study that documents individual educational trajectories
over time. The two designs answer different research questions altogether and
should not be confused.
A true longitudinal add-on to an ILSA combines the advantages of an interna-
tionally comparable study and a time perspective in the data that can help to gain
insights beyond cross-sectional relationships. In a strict longitudinal design, a
repeated measure may focus either on the students and their learning and career
advancement, or on schools, to learn more about school development and organiza-
tional change. Successful examples of longitudinal add-ons to PISA can be found in
Australia (Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth: LSAY; Thomson and Hillman
2010), Canada (Youth in Transition Survey: YITS, OECD 2010, 2012) Germany
(PISA-I-plus, Prenzel et al. 2006) and other countries. Besides adding a 1 year fol-
low-up to PISA 2003, another to PISA 2012, and further adding full ninth grade
classes in each PISA school, Germany has also installed an institutional 9-year lon-
gitudinal data set by interlinking the two school samples of PISA 2000 and 2009
(Klieme 2012). Schools from PISA 2000 were repeatedly sampled in an add-on to
PISA 2009. Such longitudinal extensions can be applied to a great variety of EER
questions on school development, curriculum research and student learning.
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Title: Seltsame Käuze

Geschichten aus dem Tierleben

Author: Arno Marx

Release date: September 24, 2023 [eBook #71714]

Language: German

Original publication: Stuttgart: Kosmos, Gesellschaft der

Naturfreunde (Franck'sche Verlagshandlung), 1914

Credits: The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at

https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SELTSAME

KÄUZE ***
 Anmerkungen zur Transkription
Der vorliegende Text wurde anhand der Buchausgabe von 1914 so weit wie möglich
originalgetreu wiedergegeben. Typographische Fehler wurden stillschweigend korrigiert.
Ungewöhnliche und heute nicht mehr verwendete Schreibweisen bleiben gegenüber dem
Original unverändert; fremdsprachliche Ausdrücke wurden nicht korrigiert.
Der Übersichtlichkeit halber wurde das Inhaltsverzeichnis an den Anfang des Texts
verschoben.
Das Original wurde in Frakturschrift gesetzt. Passagen in Antiquaschrift werden hier
kursiv wiedergegeben. Abhängig von der im jeweiligen Lesegerät installierten Schriftart
können die im Original g e s p e r r t gedruckten Passagen gesperrt, in serifenloser Schrift,
oder aber sowohl serifenlos als auch gesperrt erscheinen.
Seltsame Käuze
 Arno Marx

Seltsame Käuze
Geschichten aus dem Tierleben

Kosmos, Gesellschaft der Naturfreunde

Franckh’sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart
 Inhaltsverzeichnis

Seite
Schnüffel, der Igel 1
Raben 9
Unser Eisvogel 17
Waldkauz 25
Ohreulen 33
Rothals und Grauwange 41
Vom Hecht 48
Die Papierburg 56
Hermännchen 64
Raubritter 72
Fasan 83
Neuntöter 92
Zwergreiher 100
Käuze im Dorfe 108
Vom Pionier im Samtrock 115
Königin Apis 123
Hüttenjagd 132
Vom Aal 149
Haselmaus 157
Frau Duftig und ihre Kinder 165
 Schnüffel, der Igel

Am Ende des Dorfes, an seiner schönsten Stelle, liegt die

Wassermühle. Der Bach, der lustig über Stock und Stein sprang,
dann durch die Felder eilte und im Dorfteiche seine Glieder ein
Weilchen ausruhte, muß durch ein enges Bett, über Bretter hinweg
und unter einem Schützen hindurch sich zwängen. Zischend und
sprudelnd springt er hinunter auf ein großes Wasserrad, das sich
ächzend dreht unter seinem Aufprall. Langsam und gleichmäßig
dreht das große Rad an der Welle, die knirschende Mahlsteine und
klappernde Schüttbretter bewegt. Das Sprudeln und Zischen, das
Brummen und Stampfen, das Klappern und Klingeln, wenn ein Gang
leer läuft, kurz all der dumpfe, eigenartige Mühlenlärm nimmt Tag
und Nacht kein Ende. Doch die Leute in der Mühle vernehmen nichts
davon, und auch der Spitz, der an der Kette wie rasend tobt, wenn
ein fremder Schritt sich nähert, die Hühner auf dem Hofe und die
Tauben, die sich gurrend auf dem Dache herumtreiben, sie alle sind
gerade so an das Geräusch gewöhnt, wie die Mäuse und Ratten, die
in dem alten Mühlgemäuer hausen und ihren Teil von Getreide,
Schrot und Kleie nehmen, ohne um Erlaubnis zu fragen.
Nur einer hat fortwährend über den Lärm und die Unruhe zu
klagen, gerade wie er sich beschwert, wenn die Jahreszeiten sich
ändern, oder heute, wenn es regnet, und morgen, wenn die Sonne
scheint. Will man den Nörgler, den Griesgram besuchen, so muß
man sich einige Schritte bachabwärts bemühen. Dort steht ein alter,
hohler Kopfweidenbaum, der immer und immer hofft, einmal noch
zum Blühen zu kommen, wenn auch zwanzigmal und öfter schon der
habgierige Mensch ihm seine schlanken Zweige raubte. Unten dicht
über dem Boden führt eine Öffnung in den hohlen Baum, durch die
ein dicker Kater bequem durchschlüpfen könnte. Hier hat der
Unzufriedene seine Wohnung. Aus dürrem Laub und trockenen
Grashalmen ist ein sauberes, warmes Nest gebaut worden.
Wollen doch einmal sehen, ob der Bewohner zu sprechen ist.
Tastend fährt ein Stöckchen in den Laubhaufen, jetzt stößt es auf
einen tierischen Körper, und zorniges Fauchen tönt uns entgegen.
„Bangemachen gilt bei uns nicht, Freundchen!“ Weiter tastet der
Stock und deutlich spüren wir ein kratziges, stachliges Etwas im
Innern des Nestes. Der Insasse ist entschieden sehr ungehalten
über unsern Eingriff, das Fauchen klingt ganz zornig, und jetzt wird
gar der Stock weggestoßen. Wir brauchen nicht weiter zu forschen.
Daß ein I g e l im Baumstumpf steckt, haben wir ja längst erraten.
Schnorrer, der dicke Kater, und Spitz, der unbestechliche Wächter,
sie kennen ihn längst, den alten Igel Schnüffel, sie kennen alle seine
Eigenheiten und wissen auch, wie es kam, daß der früher so
gutmütige und zufriedene Igeljüngling zu einem alten, grilligen
Einsiedler wurde.
Vor vier oder fünf Wintern mag es gewesen sein, da erblickte
Schnüffel unter einem dichten Reisighaufen das Licht der Welt. Gar
komisch muß er damals ausgesehen haben, wenigstens seine
Mutter sprach immer davon, daß er der netteste und hübscheste
kleine Igel gewesen wäre, den sie jemals gesehen hätte. Seine
kleine rosige Schnauze und die weißen Stacheln, die kleinen
schwarzen Augen hätten ihn zu einem entzückenden kleinen Bengel
gestempelt. Na ja, seine Mutter, die Frau Swinegel — den Namen
hatte sie von einem weißen Kater aus Norddeutschland, der
Plattdeutsch sprach, erhalten — war ja eine kreuzbrave Frau, aber in
bezug auf Kinder ein bißchen eitel. Sicher waren seine Geschwister
auch ganz prächtige Kerlchen gewesen, aber weil sie in der
Regennacht naß wurden und starben, hatte Schnüffels Mutter gar
keinen Grund, sie lieb zu haben; ihre ganze Liebe übertrug sie auf
den einzigen Überlebenden, eben Schnüffel. Wie eine halbe
Wallnußschale groß war er erst gewesen, aber erstaunlich rasch
wuchs er heran. Sein Haarkleid fing an zu sprießen, seine Stacheln
färbten sich, und auch seine rosenrote Nase wurde dunkler. Nach
vielen vergeblichen Versuchen lernte er es auch, sein Stachelkleid
ruckweise über die Nase herunter zu ziehen, ja, bald konnte er sich
zu einer richtigen Kugel zusammenrollen wie ein erwachsener Igel.
Nun durfte er auch allein ausgehen und selbst bestimmen, was er
essen wollte.
Ach hätte ihn doch seine Mutter etwas straffer in Ordnung
gehalten, dann wäre er vielleicht nie zu seiner trüben
Weltanschauung gekommen.
Es war ein wunderschöner Herbsttag. Die Sonne lachte und
trocknete die Spuren, die der Regen von gestern überall
zurückgelassen hatte. Das schöne Wetter lockte Schnüffel, und
ohne sich viel um das helle Licht zu kümmern, trollte er hinüber nach
Müllers Garten, um zu sehen, ob nicht eine reife Butterbirne gefallen
wäre. Wirklich lag eine am Spalier und Schnüffel begann, sie
behaglich schmatzend zu verzehren. Da raschelt es plötzlich. Mit
einem Ruck zog er seine Stachelhaut über den Kopf und gerade zur
rechten Zeit. Schnüffel fühlte, wie etwas heftig an seine Stacheln
stieß und dann knurrend zurückfuhr. „Aha, ein Hund“, dachte er, „na,
dann hole dir nur eine blutige Nase, ich habe Zeit, bis du es satt
hast“. „Wau, wau, waau, wäwäwäwä“, jaulte der Hund und fuhr
rasend vor Wut immer und immer wieder auf den Stachelklumpen
los. Wohl eine halbe Stunde währte der Lärm, und Schnüffels
empfindliche Ohren waren fast taub davon geworden, und ein
dumpfes Brummen in seinem Schädel setzte ein. Endlich hatte der
Hund sein Kläffen selber satt. „Das wurde Zeit, sonst wäre ich wohl
noch krank geworden von dem Lärm“, dachte Schnüffel, rollte sich
auf und wollte sich eiligst aus dem Staube machen. Da ging es
„Schnapp“, und wie ein feuriger Funken fuhr es dem Igel über die
Nase. Der Hund hatte stumm dagelegen und dann dem Igel nach
der Nase geschnappt. Bis zur Dunkelheit lag nun Schnüffel fest
zusammengerollt da. Ein Glück, daß der Hund einen Augenblick zu
zeitig zugefahren war, sonst hätte wohl die Wunde dem
Stachelhelden den Tod gebracht, so kam er mit einer runzligen
Narbe und dem Schrecken davon.
Die Wunde auf der Stirn verlieh Schnüffels Gesicht etwas
Mürrisches, und auch sein Charakter verlor allmählich die
Gemütlichkeit, wie sie sonst bei der Sippe Igel die Regel ist.
Schnüffel wurde zum Nörgler. Wenn ihm, was selten genug vorkam,
ein dicker Mistkäfer vor der Nase wegflog, faßte er das als
persönliche Tücke des Schicksals auf. Geradezu unverschämt fand
er die Geschwindigkeit der Mäuse, und rächte sich, wenn er eine
überrumpeln konnte. Ging er in den Garten, um wie allabendlich
seine Fallbirnen zu holen und fand die Früchte schon gepflückt,
dann konnte er lange Selbstgespräche halten und über die
Schlechtigkeit der Menschen schimpfen, die ihm seine Birnen
gestohlen hatten. Den Menschen und ihrer Mißgunst schreibt er es
zu, wenn es anfängt, Winter zu werden, ihnen schreibt er auch die
Erfindung der Hunde zu. Überhaupt Hunde! Wenn ihn da einer
anbellt, der kann ja auf eine zerstochene Schnauze gefaßt sein. Es
fällt Schnüffel gar nicht ein, sich völlig zusammenzurollen. Straff
zieht er die Stirnhaut zu einem stachligen Helm zusammen und
erwartet unter trommelndem Brummen seinen Erbfeind. Sobald der
Hund ihm zu nahe kommt, stößt er mit einem raschen Rucke zu und
spießt seine Stacheln in die empfindliche Schnauze des Gegners. Je
wütender der Hund wird, desto besonnener verteidigt sich Schnüffel,
bis er schließlich doch das Feld behauptet und der übel zugerichtete
Feind beschämt abzieht.
Schnüffel ist stolz auf seine Kühnheit, Hunden gegenüber; aber
auch sonst gibt es Gelegenheit genug, zu zeigen, daß unter seinem
stachligen Fell ein tapferes Herz wohnt. Gar manche Ratte, vor der
auch Schnorrers tapferes Katerherz ängstlich zu werden begann, ist
unter seinem Biß verblutet. Zufassen und nicht loslassen ist die
Hauptsache bei der Rattenjagd, und dann schnell wie der Blitz das
Stachelvisier herunter, dann kann die erfaßte Ratte rasen und
beißen wie sie will. Wenn sie sich dann jämmerlich zerstochen und
mattgetobt hat, dann kann ein zweiter und nach einer Weile ein
dritter und vierter Biß das Opfer töten, und der Schmaus kann
beginnen. Dann ist Schnüffel froh und zufrieden, bis das Mahl
beendet ist.
Die ritterlichsten Kämpfe gibt es aber doch im Frühjahr, wenn die
Liebe an das Igelherz rührt. Dann zieht Schnüffel hinaus in den
Wald, um sich eine oder auch einige Schöne zu suchen; denn
betreffs ehelicher Treue nimmt er es nicht sonderlich genau. Zwar
versuchen die rechtmäßigen Liebhaber den unliebsamen
Eindringling mit der Stirnnarbe zu vertreiben und ihre angestammten
Rechte zu behaupten, aber ohne Erfolg. Keiner kann so wuchtige
Schläge mit dem Stachelhelm austeilen wie Schnüffel, keiner kann
wie er jede Blöße des Gegners zu einem raschen Bisse benutzen.
Hat er dann der Minne Sold genossen, dann hat er nichts dagegen,
wenn der frühere Galan wieder an seine Stelle tritt, dann eilt er
weiter, um neue Abenteuer zu bestehen.
Doch nicht nur Liebeskämpfe, auch andere Sträuße besteht
Schnüffel auf seinen Frühjahrsfahrten. Just um die gleiche Zeit,
Anfang April, erwachen auch die Kreuzottern aus ihrer winterlichen
Erstarrung und kriechen heraus, um Sonnenbäder zu nehmen.
Wenn eine aber Schnüffel in die Quere kommt, kann sie ihr
Testament machen. Zwar giftfest ist er nicht, aber er verläßt sich auf
sein Kleid, klappt den Helm vor und beißt das giftige Reptil einfach
tot, um es dann zu verzehren.
Im Frühjahr hält Schnüffel überhaupt auf kräftige Kost. Wenn
man vom November bis zum März rein gar nichts genießt, dann
bleibt auch beim sparsamsten Atmen von den Fettpolstern des
Herbstes nichts übrig. Dann schlittert die Haut um den Körper, aus
dem fetten Schweinigel des Herbstes ist ein dürrer Hundeigel
geworden. Und dabei ist der Tisch im Frühjahr durchaus nicht etwa
allzu reich gedeckt. Dicke Schnecken gibt es noch nicht viel,
Regenwürmer sind auch nicht häufig zu finden. Gar viele Mäuse sind
in der Nässe des Frühjahrs umgekommen, Eidechsen und
Blindschleichen, Ringelnattern und Kreuzottern muß man am Tage
suchen. Doch Schnüffel leidet trotzdem nicht Not. Jetzt macht er
seinem Namen Ehre und durchschnuppert jeden Winkel nach etwas
Genießbarem. Oft sind es nur Käfer und ihre Larven, die er findet,
aber in großer Zahl machen sie auch satt. Bald fangen auch
Rebhühner und Fasanen an, ihre Eier zu legen, da gibt es oft fette
Tage. So ein paar frische Eier schmecken auch dem Igel gut. Wenn
auch beim Ausschlürfen etwas vom Inhalt verloren geht, na, das
schadet nicht viel, dann versucht man eben seine Zähne an einem
andern. Am reichsten aber ist der Tisch in maikäferreichen Jahren
gedeckt, wenn am Morgen die von der Kühle der Nacht erstarrten
Käfer im Grase sitzen. Dann haben die spitzen Zähnchen Schnüffels
fortwährend zu tun, und behaglich schmatzend verzehrt der
Stachelheld einen nach dem andern. Wenn dann das feuchte
Näschen noch eine Maus entdeckt hat, die durch rasches,
bolzenartiges Zufahren erwischt wird oder die aus ihrem flachen
Loche ausgescharrt werden kann, dann ist der Igel so ziemlich mit
seinem Schicksal zufrieden.
Bald kommen die warmen Sommernächte, in denen die
Kleintierwelt so zahlreich umherkriecht, das sind Feste für den Igel.
Bald muß eine fette Schnecke, bald ein Regenwurm, dann ein Käfer
hinunter in den Magen, bald wieder wird eine unerfahrene Maus
erwischt oder eine junge Goldammer verspeist, die zu zeitig dem
Neste entflogen war. Bei der reichlichen Kost wird Schnüffel fett,
unter seiner Stachelhaut liegen dicke Fettpolster, und das dicke
Bäuchlein scheint am Boden zu schleifen. Wenn dann der Herbst
heranrückt und die Obstsorten reifen läßt, wendet sich Schnüffel
mehr der Pflanzenkost zu. Bald verspeist er eine saftige Birne, bald
eine blaue Pflaume, und dabei wird er immer fetter.
Wer aber glauben sollte, der alte Igel würde um so gemütlicher
und zufriedener, je dicker er wird, der irrt gewaltig. Der Herbst ist die
Zeit, wo Schnüffel am meisten schimpft. Er klagt, daß die Nächte so
kalt würden und der leckerste Bissen dann keinen Reiz mehr für ihn
hätte. Natürlich sind es die Menschen, denen Schnüffel die
Abnahme der Wärme zuschreibt. Aber er will es sie schon fühlen
lassen, nicht eine Schnecke, nicht eine Maus will er ihnen
wegfangen, das mag tun, wer will, er streikt. Und dann geht er und
sammelt abgefallenes Laub. Ganze Büschel voll schleppt er in den
hohlen Weidenstumpf, auch dürres Gras trägt er dazu und formt ein
warmes Nest, in dem er die ungünstige Jahreszeit verbringt. Wenn
einmal Frost und Schnee die Erde in Bann hält, findet man selten
einen Igel außer Versteck, erst die Märzsonne lockt sie wieder
heraus.
 Raben

In einem harten Winter hatten sie sich kennen gelernt. Ohne

Vorstellung hatten sie gleich gefühlt, daß sie zusammengehörten,
wenn er auch einen schwarzen Rock trug und sie eine nebelgraue
Robe mit schwarzem Schulterkragen. Schon ihre Mundart hatte so
viel Verwandtes, wenn er auch Rabenkrähensächsisch sprach, wie
es in der Elbaue üblich ist, und sie den Nebelkrähendialekt der
Lausitz. Die vielen Saatkrähen, in deren Gemeinschaft sie sich durch
den Winter schlugen, hatten eine ganz andere Sprache. Zwar ihr
Schnabel war länger, spitzer und feiner, aber ihre Stimme war rauh
und grob, wenn sie nicht in Fisteltöne überschlug. Manchmal
gesellten sich auch Dohlen zu ihrer Schar. Bei den Wanderungen
waren die dann an der Spitze und ihr Djah, Djah gab den Weg an.
In einer so gemischten Gesellschaft gab es natürlich oft Zank und
Streit. Da hatte eine alte Saatkrähe mit grindigem Schnabel eine
Maus gehascht, doch die anderen Mitglieder der Gesellschaft
suchten sie ihr abzujagen unter vielem Geschrei und Gekrächz. Bei
den dampfenden Dunghaufen auf den Feldern ging es friedlicher
her. Da war für alle genug zu fressen, ob es nun halbverdaute
Haferkörner waren oder ein Heringskopf oder Wurstschalen. Nur
besonders große Bissen erregten dann den Neid und die Streitlust
der andern. Auch die beiden echten Raben, die Nebelkrähenjungfrau
und der Rabenkrähenjüngling, mußten zunächst manchen Bissen an
neidische Gefährten abtreten. Bald aber merkten sie, daß eigentlich
doch ihre Schnäbel die kräftigeren waren, und nun machten sie
selbst oft erfolgreiche Jagd auf fremde Bissen. Ein besonderes
Freudenfest war es für die Raben, wenn ein Stück Fallwild gefunden
wurde oder wenn Reineke Langschwanz, der Fuchs, einen Hasen
gefangen hatte und ihn nun der Dickung zuschleppen wollte. Hei,
das machte Spaß, ihm in jähem Schwunge einen Hieb zu versetzen,
bis er verschüchtert seinen Raub im Stiche ließ und vor den
lärmenden Galgenvögeln die Flucht ergriff. Dann füllten sich die
Raben Kropf und Magen, bis nichts mehr hineinging.
Die Saatkrähen zupften und schlangen wohl auch, aber ihre Kost
war das nicht; denen waren die Körner an der Fasanenfütterung viel
lieber, wenn auch dort manche nach einem wundersam rauchenden
Donner in den Schnee stürzte. Dann kam gewöhnlich ein Mann aus
dem Fichtendickicht mit einem langen Ding in der Hand, nahm die
Geschossene und ging seiner Wege. Dann war laut krächzendes
Wehklagen in der Luft, aber lebendig wurde der Gefährte nicht
wieder. Danach war die Fütterung einige Tage unheimlich und wurde
gemieden.
Aber ein anderer reicher Ersatz bot sich dar. Am Waldrande lag
ein Rehkitz, das der Fuchs schon angegangen hatte. Die
Bauchhöhle war geöffnet und den Krähen der Weg zum Mahle leicht
gemacht. Unter den spitzen Schnäbeln schmolz das Wildbret ganz
gehörig zusammen, und nur wenig blieb übrig für den kommenden
Tag. Am anderen Morgen war der Rest noch da, und eilig machten
sich die Saatkrähen ans Mahl, während die vorsichtigen Raben erst
von der hohen Fichte aus Umschau hielten nach dem gefürchteten
Grünrock mit der Donnerbüchse.
Auf einmal ertönten laute Schreckensrufe von den am Aase
beschäftigten Verwandten. Eine der jungen Saatkrähen ist soeben
beim gierigen Mahle tot umgesunken. Strichnin hat der Förster auf
das bloßgelegte Fleisch gestreut, jetzt beginnt es zu wirken. Schon
liegen zwei weitere zuckende Opfer auf dem Schnee, entsetzt
versuchen alle anderen zu entfliehen, aber manche stürzt noch in
den Schnee. Furchtbar ist die Wirkung des giftigen Fleisches im
leeren Magen, ein Dutzend der betrogenen Krähen fallen nach
wenigen Flügelschlägen zu Boden, einige vermögen sich noch bis
zu den nächsten Bäumen zu flüchten, die überlebenden aber suchen
krächzend das Weite.
 Gar harte Tage folgten. Endlich schien die Sonne wärmer, aber
die ersten Tage der Schneeschmelze brachten neue Entbehrungen
für den Krähenschwarm. Der Schnee wurde zähe und naß, in der
Nacht fror er zusammen, und es machte große Mühe, die harte
Kruste zu durchbrechen. In diesen Tagen war die Landstraße mit
dem Pferdedung stark besucht, sogar in die Nähe der Häuser
wagten sich die hungrigen Schwarzen und schlangen die
Schweinsborsten und die Hautfetzen gierig hinunter, die vom letzten
Schlachtfest an der Miststelle lagen. Doch die Not wich einem
wahren Festmahle, als Tauwetter kam und allerorts Hochwasser auf
den Wiesen stand. An der Wassergrenze waren Schnecken und
Käfer in Hülle und Fülle angetrieben, und mit wohlgefüllten Kröpfen
flogen die Krähen an diesem Abend nach ihren Schlafplätzen. Am
anderen Tage wurde es noch besser. Das Wasser war
zurückgetreten, und in den zahlreichen Pfützen auf der Wiese waren
Hunderte von kleinen Weißfischen zurückgeblieben, die den
Küchenzettel wesentlich bereicherten.
Die schlimmste Zeit war nun überstanden. Nach einigen Wochen
kehrten die Stare aus den Winterquartieren zurück und mischten
sich unter die Krähenscharen. Das war das Zeichen, allmählich in
die Brutplätze einzurücken und zu sehen, was der Winter für
Schaden an den Nestern angerichtet hatte. Die Nebelkrähe und der
Rabenjüngling trugen sich mit Abschiedsgedanken. Sie zog es mit
Gewalt ostwärts, wie sie sagte, er aber wollte in seiner Heimat
bleiben, um hier ein Weib zu freien. Am liebsten wäre ihm ja seine
Gefährtin als Gattin gewesen; trug sie auch ein anderes Kleid, sie
war doch eine Artgenossin, und in den gemeinsam überstandenen
Gefahren hatte er hinreichend Gelegenheit gehabt, ihren Charakter
zu beobachten und sich in sie zu verlieben. In gewandtem Flugspiel,
durch Augenverdrehen und Bauchrednereien machte er ihr also
ganz nach Rabenart seine Wünsche klar, — und er fand Gehör. Ihre
Absicht zu ziehen, war nicht so ernst gewesen. Sie neckte sich mit
ihm im Fluge, sie ging mit ihm zur Nahrungssuche aus, ja sie duldete
es sogar, daß er sich auf dem Schlafbaum an sie schmiegte oder ihr
zärtlich die Kopffedern kraute.
 Unter Necken und Spielen trieb sich das Pärchen umher, strich
einmal nach dem Wald, dann wieder suchte es die Feldgehölze ab,
bis es schließlich eine hohle Erle am Bachufer für geeignet zur
Anlage des Horstes hielt. Hierhin schleppten die Krähen zunächst
starke, dann schwächere Zweige und bauten eine feste Unterlage,
dann kamen Gräser und Würzelchen an die Reihe, und innen wurde
das Kunstwerk mit Wildhaaren weich und warm ausgepolstert. Die
Raben waren nicht wenig stolz auf ihren Bau, frohlockend
umkreisten sie ihn oder riefen von der Spitze des Nestbaums ihre
Freude in die Welt hinaus.
Das war recht unklug gehandelt, das sollten sie bald merken. Am
Abend saß die Nebelkrähe im Nest, um sich immer ein wenig an das
unbequeme Sitzen zu gewöhnen; bald würden ja die Eier kommen
und bebrütet werden müssen. Da hört sie unter sich leise Schritte;
vorsichtig lugt sie ein wenig über den Nestrand und erschrickt zu
Tode, als sie den grünröckigen Mann mit der Donnerbüchse
heranschleichen sieht. Mit einem kühnen Satze wirft sie sich aus
dem Neste, schwenkt zweimal kurz um Baumkronen herum und
rettet glücklich ihr Leben. Der nachgesandte Schuß wirft nur einige
Birkenzweige zu Boden. Aber es tönt noch ein Doppelschuß, dem
Neste hat es gegolten und am Morgen kann sich das Krähenpaar
überzeugen, daß sein Kunstwerk zerfetzt und unbrauchbar in der
Erle hängt. Und dabei ist das erste Ei beinahe ausgebildet zum
Ablegen!
Ratlos streichen die beiden Krähen umher und finden schließlich
in einem kleinen Feldgehölz auf einer hohen Kiefer einen vorjährigen
Horst. Hier sind im Vorjahre glücklich Junge großgebracht worden,
noch liegen ja die Schuppen der Federspulen im Neste. Eilig wird
das Innere ein wenig mit Haaren ausgepolstert und nach zwei Tagen
ist glücklich auch das erste Ei gelegt. Gebührend wird das grüngelbe
Kunstwerk mit den dunkleren Flecken vom Herrn Gemahl
bewundert, und gemeinsam gehen beide Gatten hinaus aufs Feld,
um als Frühstück einige Engerlinge hinter dem Pfluge des
Landmannes aufzulesen. Eine Woche vergeht, und schon ist das
Gelege vollständig, und Frau Krähe muß eifrig brüten. Da wird die
Zeit gar lang. Doch, der Gemahl kommt von Zeit zu Zeit mit Futter
und sucht die Gattin zu zerstreuen, die ihn unter Flügelzittern und
Krächzlauten willkommen heißt.
Wohl zwanzig Tage mögen bei dem Brutgeschäft verstrichen
sein, da zeigen eines Morgens die Eier kleine Pusteln. Die Schale ist
aufgewölbt und auf dem kleinen Huckel führt ein Loch in das Ei
hinein. Die Jungen sind am Ausfallen. Endlich hat eins durch
kräftiges Picken die Schale zertrümmert und hält unter Beihilfe der
Alten seinen Eintritt in die Welt. Man kann nicht sagen, daß es das
Licht der Welt erblickt, seine Augen sind noch zugewachsen;
bläulich schimmern sie an den Seiten des Kopfes durch die Haut.
Ein schnurriges Ding ist so ein frischgeschlüpfter Vogel. Der Kopf ist
mächtig dick und baumelt an einem langen, dünnen Halse, der
Schnabel ist noch recht kurz und weich, nur der kleine weiße Fleck
an der Schnabelspitze, der Eizahn, ist hart. Eine unförmige Blase
bildet den Leib. Noch ist das Brustbein, an dem später die starken
Flugmuskeln ansetzen, kurz und schwach, noch wird es ja nicht
gebraucht, aber der Darm ist gut entwickelt und schimmert durch die
Bauchwand.
Fünf dieser kleinen Scheusälchen hocken am Abend unter dem
wärmenden Bauchgefieder der Mutter, die von Zeit zu Zeit einen
liebenden Blick auf ihre hoffnungsvollen Sprößlinge wirft. Auch der
Herr Papa ist voller Wonne über die „reizenden“ Kleinen, und es ist
ihm eine angenehme Pflicht, die Gattin auf kurze Zeit abzulösen,
damit sie sich ein bißchen Bewegung machen und am Bache den
Durst stillen kann.
Am andern Tage beginnt das Füttern; immer muß abwechselnd
eins der Eltern wärmen, das andere Futter suchen. Sie überbieten
sich gegenseitig in Liebe gegen ihre Brut. Kein Engerling, keine
Raupe scheint ihnen zart genug für die kleinen Magen, doch denen
scheint es mehr um die Menge zu tun zu sein als um die Zartheit.
Sie werden gar nicht müde, immer aufs neue den gelben Rachen
aufzureißen und ihn auf zitterndem Halse den Ernährern
entgegenzustrecken. Bei so viel Gefräßigkeit auf der einen, und
Fürsorge auf der anderen Seite macht die körperliche Entwickelung
der Kleinen riesige Fortschritte. Mit besonderer Freude wird das
erste Öffnen der Augen, dann der erste Schrei, das Sprießen der