This study examined mathematics anxiety among high and low achieving students (N = 237, grades 9 and 10) by contrasting trait (habitual) and state (momentary) assessments of anxiety. Previous studies have found that trait anxiety measures are typically rated higher than state measures. Furthermore, the academic self-concept has been identified to…

Results of the last thirty years in mathematics education have shown the importance of an operational concept development. One of the geometrical concepts that has been researched for years already, however, not with the particular focus on its systematic teaching in school mathematics, is the concept of angle. In this paper we focus on children's…

Given the rapid development of modern biotechnology, attention to socioscientific issues in educational contexts is crucially important to support students in becoming responsible citizens. The authors' research focused on the impact of discussing socioscientific issues during biology lessons under 3 different treatments (teacher guided, student…

We conducted an experimental study with 192 ninth graders in which we investigated a connection between performance and students' interest and enjoyment using task-unspecific and task-specific questionnaires. Students were randomly assigned to experimental group 1 or to experimental group 2. In group 1, they were asked about their affective…

This paper refers to the concept of semiotic and theoretic control describing resources to conduct decisions in epistemic processes. We consider an argumentation process from a complex problem-solving activity involving different conceptual frames related to parabolas. Using a micro-analytical interpretative lens, we will show that, in order to…

Researchers have used various theories to explain deaf individuals' reading skills, including the dual route reading theory, the orthographic depth theory, and the early language access theory. This study tested 4 groups of children--hearing with dyslexia, hearing without dyslexia, deaf early signers, and deaf late signers (N = 857)--from 4…

In Germany, adolescents with emotional and behavioural disturbances (EBD) are either schooled in special schools for students with EBD or in regular schools. The present study is the first to compare the perceived attainment of a broad range of developmental tasks of adolescents with and without EBD attending regular vs. special schools. While…

The willingness to solve conflicts without violence and to strive for a reconciliation of interests is of central significance for the continued existence of democracies. In this paper, we aim to analyze school-related determinants of adolescents' conflict behaviour. Models predicting the conflict styles of "integrating",…

Across several countries, science is often regarded as unpopular and a male-dominated domain. Furthermore, the number of students who are interested in science education or intend to work in the field of science is relatively low. This might be due to expectations adolescents hold towards science and successful scientists. The current…

The reported study investigated students' perceptions of their high-performing classmates in terms of intelligence, social skills, and conscientiousness in different school subjects. The school subjects for study were examined with regard to cognitive, physical, and gender-specific issues. The results show that high academic achievements in…

Besides cognitive learning effects, short-term environmental education (EE) is often regarded as ineffective in intervening with participants' environmental attitudes and behaviour. However, in Germany, school classes often participate in such 1-day EE programmes because they better match the school curriculum in contrast to longer (residential)…

We examined selected situational emotions (interest, well-being and anxiety) experienced by 291 secondary school tenth graders during a hands-on gene technology lesson. Two different instruction groups (I-1, I-2) participated in the same teaching unit, in which four basic gene technology experiments were performed. Using a modified…

The relevance of environmental attitudes is obvious and attitudes towards farm and companion animals and animal welfare in medical research are an important aspect of education. However, both have rarely been linked with each other, and animal attitudes are only sparsely represented within environmental education assessment instruments. Linking…

This article presents an empirical study on an initial learning progression of energy, a concept of central importance to the understanding of science. Learning progressions have been suggested as one vehicle to support the systematic and successful teaching of core science concepts. Ideally, a learning progression will provide teachers with a…

In view of the lack of instruments for measuring biology teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), this article reports on a study about the development of PCK items for measuring teachers' knowledge of pupils' errors and ways for dealing with them. This study investigated 9th and 10th grade German pupils' (n = 461) drawings in an achievement…