The Home Learning Environment (HLE) focuses on everyday learning habits in families to support the development of children's early cognitive competencies. A growing number of studies have assessed the HLE by using different conceptual approaches and various assessment methods, often focusing on either the home literacy environment or the home…

Pretend play may be beneficial for young children's social development. However, empirical results to date are inconsistent and limited, which is partly due to a lack of psychometrically sound measures for children's social pretend play competence. The current study aimed to compare and validate different assessment methods for children's social…

In a German out-of-school laboratory, 293 medium-achieving 10th-grade students participated in a lesson unit about gene technology. They were divided into two groups (I-1, I-2), both of which followed the same hands-on lesson procedure. Students within I-2 were additionally confronted with alternative conceptions to central issues of the specific…

To assess the mental abilities of mentally retarded children, 100 tests were tried out on more than 350 German Ss and the TBGB ("Test-batterie fur geistig behinderte Kinder"Test battery for mentally retarded children") was developed. (SW)