• Longitudinal study through the end of Grade 2

• Testing and surveys of children, parents, teachers, and school administrators

• Teachers conduct the assessments independently

• Tablets and headphones required (a limited number can be provided by the Hector Institute)

• Participation in PINGUIN is completely free of charge.

In summary, participation in the study means for…

… Teachers:
By participating in PINGUIN, you will gain valuable insights into the conduct of a scientific study. At the beginning and end of the first grade, you will receive individual feedback on your students’ learning levels as well as an overview of performance distribution within your class. The feedback illustrates each student’s performance as well as the distribution of abilities across the specified task areas. From the results, teachers can see whether a child is at the same learning level as most other first graders, or whether they perform below or above average.

Additionally, we provide a brief compendium of evidence-based support measures for lower- and higher-performing students across the different areas.

… School Administrators:
Your teachers will not only gain valuable information about their students’ learning levels but also acquire important skills in administering and interpreting diagnostic assessments. This enables your school to contribute to the implementation of evidence-based teaching practices, which primarily benefits your students.

… Parents and Children:
Our experience so far shows that children participate in the assessments with great enthusiasm. The tasks are administered via tablets and are designed to be age-appropriate. By participating, you can help contribute to improving learning opportunities for all children.

Due to the large individual differences in learning prerequisites among school beginners, early and reliable assessment is essential for targeted interventions, both for children at the lower and higher ends of the performance spectrum. Teachers can better provide appropriate learning opportunities and support learning processes when they are well-informed about their students’ existing potential and school-relevant prior knowledge. Science and policy agree that high-performing and particularly gifted children should be identified early to create suitable support conditions. However, there is currently no standardized assessment of individual learning levels or cognitive potential in primary schools. While tests to determine developmental status are available before school entry, Germany lacks a comprehensive, reliable, and meaningful assessment of school-relevant skills at the start of formal schooling (Grade 1).

Experiences from other countries show that standardized procedures in this area can have positive effects. Initial results from similar studies in Germany (FIPS+) indicate that standardized tests for assessing learning prerequisites are associated with more accurate teacher assessments, positive student performance development, and a more performance-based selection for extracurricular enrichment programs, such as those offered by the Hector Children’s Academies. Overall, standardized assessment of learning prerequisites and early potential diagnostics provide an opportunity to identify students’ individual strengths and weaknesses early and to recognize particularly gifted children regardless of their family background—especially those students whose talents might otherwise go unnoticed or be identified too late. The use of such procedures in everyday school life is therefore highly beneficial, particularly when they can be implemented efficiently—for example, through group testing—to reduce the workload for teachers. PINGUIN represents such a standardized early assessment of learning prerequisites and potential.

The collaborative project “PINGUIN: Potenzialidentifikation IN der GrUndschule” aims to further develop a modular assessment tool for evaluating cognitive potential and basic competencies in language, literacy, and mathematics at school entry. The assessment tool is designed to be administered via tablet in small groups under teacher supervision, enabling an efficient and fair testing process. At the same time, the tool is intended to objectify—and, if possible, further improve—the selection process for particularly gifted students for the Hector Children’s Academies program. In addition to assessing language and numerical basic competencies, the tool also evaluates general cognitive potential.

The project’s work program foresees that over the course of three years (2024–2027), multiple data collections will be conducted in primary schools in Baden-Württemberg and Hesse using the (further) developed tasks of the PINGUIN test battery. Within a longitudinal multi-cohort design, the research program primarily addresses aspects of convergent and discriminant validation, standardization, optimal design of performance feedback, and pragmatic aspects of test administration. From a test-pragmatic perspective, it is important that efficient testing (group assessments) can be conducted in a computerized and child-friendly manner.

As part of the PINGUIN study, first graders will be followed up until the third grade. This is the only way to examine the potential long-term positive effects of PINGUIN. The children will be assessed twice in the first grade (beginning and end of the school year) and once at the end of each school year in grades two and three. To obtain a comprehensive picture of the participating children, their parents, teachers, and school administrators will also be surveyed each school year.

Participation in the PINGUIN study is conducted in accordance with data protection regulations. It is completely voluntary and can be discontinued at any time without any consequences. The study has been approved by the Ministry of Education of Baden-Württemberg.