The Future of Education

For a growing number of prospective students, it is associated with many different barriers to take up a course of study. Interdisciplinary competences are differently developed at the initial study phase and the individual needs of students have increased (1). In Germany, nationwide representative studies (DZHW, 2007-2018) show a trend towards overstraining: Currently, students of all disciplines and types of college are widely (45.9%) confronted with difficulties when writing written papers (5) - over half of this sample (25.7%) even face "great difficulties".
There are manifold reasons for this situation: For instance, non-native speakers especially with migration background or from first-time academic families are challenged by adopting peculiarities of their discipline’s scientific language (2). Also, the number of students with special needs is constitutive, here: The results of the 21st Social Survey conducted by the German Student Union (Deutsches Studentenwerk) are representative for Germany, and they show that currently around 11% of students have a disability that makes studying difficult (3). This represents a 4% increase between their 2012 and 2016 surveys.
Institutions try to counteract by curricular measures (such as new methodological courses) or institutional support services. However, such services are predominantly used by traditional students. Although efforts to reduce barriers to education intensify in quantity, they usually do not take into account the specific support needs of an increasingly heterogeneous group of students: still, only part of the students are reached. One significant reason, we suspect, is related to the fact that when conceptualizing these support formats, it has hardly been taken into account, how different heterogeneity characteristics interact, such as biographical aspects (age, gender, etc.), socio-demographic aspects (life context, educational biography, etc.) or intramural aspects (course of study, degree) (4).
The paper presents a theoretically-based case study for a more diversity-oriented approach towards facilitating scientific skill development in academia. Instead of promoting individual groups of students (segregation) or adapting students to the higher education system (integration) and thus excluding individual students (5), our goal is to establish a more inclusive approach towards academic student support.

Keywords: scientific methodology, diversity, heterogenity, higher education, university teaching.

References
[1] DZHW. Studienqualitätsmonitor SQM 2018. Hannover; 2018.
[2] Heublein U et al. Zwischen Studienerwartungen und Studienwirklichkeit. Hannover: DZHW; 2017.
[3] Middendorff E et al. Die wirtschaftliche und soziale Lage der Studierenden in Deutschland 2016: 21. Sozialerhebung des Deutschen Studentenwerks. Berlin: BMBF; 2017.
[4] Scholkmann A. All inclusive? Diversität als Herausforderung für Hochschuldidaktik. In: Lust oder Frust? Qualität von Lehre und Studium auf dem Prüfstand. Bielefeld: wbv; 2019. p. 71–80.
[5] Auferkorte-Michaelis N, Linde F. Diversitätsgerecht Lehren und Lernen. In: Hansen K, editor. CSR und Diversity Management: Erfolgreiche Vielfalt in Organisationen. Berlin: Springer; 2017. p. 177–217.