Students' academic achievement is a key predictor of various life outcomes and is commonly used for selection as well as for educational monitoring and accountability. With regard to achievement indicators, a differentiation has traditionally been drawn between grades and standardized tests. There is initial, albeit inconclusive, evidence that…

Conscientiousness and interest are well-known predictors of academic effort and achievement. As hypothesized by the Conscientiousness × Interest Compensation (CONIC) model, conscientiousness and interest can (partly) compensate for each other, leading to (comparatively) high effort if either conscientiousness or interest is high. The present…

The promotion of an adequate understanding of science is a central goal of science education, even in elementary school. In this study, we analyzed the effects of a recently developed science intervention program aimed at fostering the understanding of science as well as the motivation of elementary school--aged boys and girls. In prior research,…

The present study investigated to what degree teachers' personality traits, cognitive abilities, and academic abilities (high school GPA), which were assessed at the end of high school as well as grades from the first and second state examinations of teacher education, predict later instructional quality. The study combined ratings of…

Personality traits and social cognitive variables are central constructs in psychological research. It is often assumed that personality traits are less changeable than social cognitive variables, and thus interventions usually tend to focus on the latter. However, these assumptions about the mutability of personality and social cognitive…

Enrichment programs provide learning opportunities for a broader or deeper examination of curricular or extracurricular topics and are popular in gifted education. Herein, we investigated the effectiveness of a statewide extracurricular enrichment program for gifted elementary school children in Germany. The program implemented a "grass…

Based on the social investment principle and theories of social relationship differentiation, the present study was conducted to investigate whether personality differences in high school predict young adults' living arrangements (with roommates or a romantic partner, alone, or staying with parents) 2 years later (selection) and whether these…

NEO instruments are widely used to assess Big Five personality factors, but confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) conducted at the item level do not support their a priori structure due, in part, to the overly restrictive CFA assumptions. We demonstrate that exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM), an integration of CFA and exploratory…