VignA Award 2024 – award winners honored for innovative research work

Franziska Herrmann, a research assistant at Freie Universität Berlin, was honored for her dissertation on the creative experiences of primary school children and students in the context of writing processes. Her work explores how creative learning processes in writing can be fostered in both primary and higher education and argues for a broader view of learning as a personal and life-changing experience. Her study offers a profound contribution to the field of writing didactics and demonstrates the transformative power of writing as a process of self-discovery and life-shaping.

Andrea Mössler-Castell, teacher and graduate of the University of Teacher Education Tyrol, was honored for her master's thesis on resonance in the learning process of children. In her work, she shows how the understanding of resonance as a fundamental relationship between children and their learning environment has a positive influence on the learning process. Her focus on phenomenological vignette research offers a new perspective on the learning experiences of primary school children and shows how a teaching relationship based on mindfulness and resonance can sustainably increase pupils' motivation and willingness to learn.

Lethabo Mbatha, a Master's graduate from the University of Pretoria and member of the Golden Key Honorary Society, was recognized for her Master's thesis, which explores the experiences of teenage mothers who became pregnant and HIV positive during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her study highlights the unique challenges faced by these young mothers in a time of health crisis and offers valuable insights into their resilience and the structural gaps in the social and health system. Her work has the potential to inform future policy and societal interventions and improve support for this vulnerable group.

Daniela Lehner, university assistant at the University of Graz, was honored for her dissertation, which examines embodied and relational onto-epistemologies in peace education. She criticizes the Cartesian worldview and the traditional understanding of the autonomous subject and argues for a new perspective on learning and education that focuses on sensibility, care and relational experiences. Her work shows how these interdisciplinary perspectives are fundamental not only to peace education, but also to education in general, especially in a world characterized by division and conflict.

Marc Kudlowski, research assistant at the University of Cologne, was honored for his dissertation on the innovative InterMedial PartnerLeSen (IM-PALS). In his work, he combines reading tandem methods and intermedia reading to promote the reading fluency and reading motivation of pupils with particularly poor reading skills. The innovative approach was developed using the children's book "Momo" as an example and uses media adaptations of the text to increase reading skills and promote motivation. Kudlowski shows how intermedia learning can facilitate access to texts without the complexity of the text being a barrier.