Decorative pictures, which make a learning text aesthetically appealing rather than provide information, have been predominantly found to impair learning by an increase of learning-irrelevant cognitive processes. Recent research, however, indicates that this effect is moderated by various factors. On the basis of cognitive-affective theories and…

Counseling parents concerning students' learning processes is considered to be an increasingly important competence area of teachers. However, few educational programs exist specifically focusing on improving this essential teacher competence, particularly in early teacher education. The current study, which took place at a German university,…

Nowadays cyberbullying prevention programs such as Surf-Fair can significantly reduce cyberbullying but little is known about necessary and sufficient conditions of their effectiveness. Case Study 1 followed three successive waves of implementation of Surf-Fair in one German highest-track secondary school in a pre-post design. Results show no…

Feedback plays an important role in supporting students' learning process. Nonetheless, providing feedback is still rather unusual in higher education. Moreover, research on the design of ideal feedback as well as its effects is rare. In order to contribute to the development of this field, a web-based feedback system was implemented in a lecture…

Students' school success in literacy and numeracy is often hampered by limited prerequisites in these domains, yet the effectiveness of different approaches to support students is unclear. Using professional training programmes for kindergarten teachers, we tested the effects of three kindergarten approaches in a quasi-experimental pre- and…

This study compared bullying involvement of Korean or Korean-German children living in Germany with children in Korea, and examined children's perceptions of school environment associated with bullying involvement of the children. This study included 105 Korean or Korean-German children living in the Bayern State of Germany as the study sample and…

Using a longitudinal design, the present study examined whether two teaching concepts that varied in their capacity to foster students' self-determination affected students' sense of social relatedness and their perceived moderation competence, as well as the interplay between these two components and the students' performance during a moderation…

Introduction: The aim of this study was to evaluate the school-based "My Body and I" program which was designed to help girls and boys to cope better with inevitable pubertal body changes. Method: Using a pre-post treatment-control design with 25 treatment and 17 control classes from schools in Germany and France (484 boys, 485 girls;…

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…

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…

Dissections of human organs and animals are an important part of medical and science education but students usually express negative emotions towards dissections. Some studies show a negative influence of disgust and anxiety on motivation, interest and achievement. Therefore, reducing anxiety and disgust should be an important aim. As humor can…

Previous research has found conflicting evidence in studies where students participate in the selection of their course topics in educational settings. Katz and Assor (2007), for example, have argued that the increase in student motivation is probably not due to the mere act of choosing, but to the value of the options with respect to personal…

In this paper we describe a "Train the Tutor" programme (TtT) for developing the metacognitive skills, facilitator skills, and tutor skills of students in a problem based learning (PBL) context. The purpose of the programme was to train 2nd and 3rd year undergraduate students in psychology to become effective PBL tutors for…

Purpose: Early onset of behavioral disorders is predictive of long term adverse outcomes. There are some indicated and selective early prevention programs for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), one of the most common behavioral disorders in childhood and adolescence. The purpose of this paper is to present a universal preschool…

Children who were 4 to 8 years of age were asked to perform a sort-recall task where only half of the items had to be studied and remembered. Following a baseline trial, children were assigned to 1 of 3 groups and were prompted to use either a sorting or a clustering strategy (experimental groups) or were not prompted at all (control group).…