Smartphone-based experimental exercises were incorporated as part of the homework problems in an introductory mechanics course at a university. A quasi-experimental field study with two cohorts design was performed to measure the impact of such exercises on motivation, interest and conceptual understanding. The empirical results on learning…

The present study investigates the effects of participation in academic extracurricular activities on student achievement in mathematics and reading in the course of secondary schooling. We use 2 samples of nonmandatory all-day schools that are part of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS): N = 1,131 fifth graders at 43 schools were followed…

This article reports on the implementation of a programme of individualised, peer-graded homework assignments in a large-scale engineering course, with minimal resources. Participation in the programme allows students to receive grades for problem-solving work in a setting more conducive to learning than the traditional final examination. The…

During the past decade, many schools in Germany have added extracurricular time to their regular curricular classes. This raises questions about the successful implementation of extracurricular programs and what makes them effective. The aim of this study is to illuminate the connection between these two questions. The theoretical and conceptual…

The present study investigated the effectiveness of two short relevance interventions (writing a text or evaluating quotations about the utility of mathematics) using a sample of 1,916 students in 82 math classrooms in a cluster randomized controlled experiment. Short-term and sustained effects (6 weeks and 5 months after the intervention) of the…