Equity issues in the field of arts and culture play an important role when it comes to extracurricular activities in education. Students with special educational needs (SEN) seem not provided with equal access. Using nation-wide random samples of fourth- and fifth-graders courtesy of the German National Education Panel Study (NEPS), the main…

Background: Further developing students' thinking about knowledge and knowing in science (epistemic beliefs) is considered a normative goal of science education in many countries around the world, even for elementary-school-aged children. Aims: The goal of the present study was to introduce and evaluate a new intervention in science education…

The ability to read adequately is one of the most important skills for students to achieve during their school career. Unfortunately, a large number of children do not have adequate reading skills and thus may face problems in many respects throughout their lives. Children with learning disabilities (LD) and behavioral problems are particularly…

Teachers play a key role in the development of self-regulated learning (SRL), especially in primary education. However, current results indicate that teachers are either inadequately or only moderately fulfilling this key function, as they spend little time in the instruction of SRL strategies. The objective of the current study was, therefore, to…

Differentiation hypotheses concern changes in the structural organization of cognitive abilities that depend on the level of general intelligence (ability differentiation) or age (developmental differentiation). Part 1 of this article presents a review of the literature on ability and developmental differentiation effects in children, revealing…

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,…

Intelligence is a well-supported predictor of school achievement, however, it refers only to the cognitive facet of learning determinants. The aim of this article is to contrast the predictive properties of two comprehensive concepts developed within the actiotope model of giftedness (AMG) with that of intelligence. These concepts are educational…

In most general education classrooms in Germany, students with and without special educational needs are taught together. To support teachers in adapting instruction to these heterogeneous classrooms, we have developed learning progress assessment (LPA) and reading instructional materials, the "Reading Sportsman" (RS), in line with the…

This study investigated the enjoyment, boredom, and anxiety of elementary school students and the relations of these emotions with achievement in two domains. Seven-hundred-and-sixty-seven second- and fourth-graders completed an adaptation of the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire-Elementary School (AEQ-ES: Lichtenfeld, Pekrun, Stupnisky, Reiss,…

Satisfaction and frustration of the basic psychological need for relatedness have been postulated to play a vital role for affective well-being. Yet, this prediction has not been thoroughly tested in schoolchildren's everyday lives. In this work, we examined the association between relatedness satisfaction and frustration at school on daily and…

In our current culture, children are exposed to a huge amount of audiovisual media, of which many formats include animated pictures, such as in videos, for instance. The current study addresses the use of audiovisual media in order to increase the effectiveness of learning and teaching. We examined how auditory text, audiovisual text with static…

Teachers' beliefs about teaching have been found to affect students' learning growth. The aim of this study was to investigate effects of teachers' constructivist and direct-transmissive beliefs on learners' reading progress and whether these effects are influenced by students' ability. We measured constructivist and direct-transmissive beliefs of…

Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often co-occur and are associated with specific learning difficulties. Robust prevalence estimations do not yet exist. We studied how symptoms of DCD and/or ADHD are related to difficulties in reading, writing, and mathematics. Using the data from a large…

Academic resilience is difficult to define in an international setting, since economic levels and achievement standards vary across countries and over time. In studies of academic resilience, the concept is typically operationalized using pre-defined cut-offs of achievement and social background. The main objective of the current study is to apply…

Progress monitoring of academic achievement is an essential element to prevent learning disorders. A prominent approach is curriculum-based measurement (CBM). Various studies have documented positive effects of CBM on students' achievement. Nevertheless, the use of CBM is associated with additional work for teachers. The use of tablets may be of…