Background: Life skills programs are effective tools to combat youth substance use. However there is a lack of studies concerning their effectiveness in Europe. Objective: This study investigated the 1 year follow up effects and the program implementation of a life skills school-based intervention (IPSY: Information + Psychosocial…

The understanding of complex, dynamic and animate systems has a special standing in education for sustainable development and biology. Thus one important role of science teacher education is to promote student teachers' Content Related Knowledge (CRK) for teaching systems thinking, consisting of extensive Content Knowledge (CK) and well formed…

Promoting preservice science teachers' experimentation competency is required to provide a basis for meaningful learning through experiments in schools. However, preservice teachers show difficulties when experimenting. Previous research revealed that cognitive scaffolding promotes experimentation competency by structuring the learning process,…

Our study investigated whether problem-oriented designed ecology lessons with phases of direct instruction and of open experimentation foster the development of cross-domain and domain-specific components of "experimental problem-solving ability" better than conventional lessons in science. We used a paper-and-pencil test to assess…

In research on parental involvement and teacher professionalization, counseling parents on the support of their children's learning processes is considered to be an increasingly important competence area of teachers. However, to date little research has been conducted on the development of appropriate approaches to the assessment of teachers'…

As a result of public discussions regarding Germany's standing on international rankings of student achievement, increased attention was focused on enhancing cognitive stimulation in preschools. There are some concerns that preschool curricula that focus more on cognitive stimulation rather than on socio-emotional skills might neglect the…

Computers are considered innovative in classrooms, raising expectations of increased cognitive learning outcomes or motivation with effects on Deeper Learning (DL). The "new medium", however, may cause cognitive overloads. Combined with gender-related variations in ability, self-efficacy or self-confidence, computers may even diminish…

This paper deals with an empirical study examining the effectiveness of interdisciplinary teaching in biology and physical education (PE) regarding the students' growth in knowledge. The study was conducted with 141 German sixth form students. In groups, they were taught three hours a week for a period of six weeks. In order to compare the…

In line with previous studies, where outdoor nature experience was shown to support adolescents' environmental knowledge, our study monitored the influence of a hands-on environmental programme within a National Park on cognitive knowledge achievement. A sample of 4th and 5th graders (n = 289) completed a week-long outreach conservation programme…

In 2010 1.1 million pupils took private lessons in Germany, with 25% of all German children by the age of 17 having attended paid private lessons at some point in their school career (Klemm & Klemm, 2010). The high demand for support for learning curricular content led us to consider an integrated solution that speeds up both the design of…

The study assessed the eye movements of 60 adult German readers during silent reading of target words, consisting of two and three syllables, embedded in sentences. The first objective was to assess whether the inhibitory effect of first syllable frequency, which was up to now primarily shown for isolated words, generalises to natural reading. The…

Empirical analysis of secondary biology classrooms revealed that, on average, 68% of teaching time in Germany revolved around processing tasks. Quality of instruction can thus be assessed by analyzing the quality of tasks used in classroom discourse. This quasi-experimental study analyzed how teachers used tasks in 38 videotaped biology lessons…

The European Language Portfolio (ELP) is an alternative assessment used in foreign language classes throughout Europe to support and record language learning. Directly linked to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe, 2001) proficiency guidelines, it is designed to achieve an ambitious dual goal: document…

Our study focused on an educational intervention designed to increase the self-esteem of low-achieving eighth graders. The intervention was a substance-specific life skills program built upon teacher-centered versus student-centered teaching methods. A cluster analysis identified four consumption groups prior to the intervention: A potentially…

Background and objectives. The majority of environmental education takes place in informal settings, of which so-called free-choice learning is typical. What is understood by this is a kind of learning which is self-determined and driven by the needs and interests of the learner. The voluntariness of participation in interventions and the fact…