Prior research has shown that brief motivation interventions, such as interventions targeting students' perceptions concerning relevance of the learning material, can have long-lasting effects on students' motivation and performance. However, the educational contexts in which these interventions have been implemented have their own motivational…

A central goal of physical education (PE) is to empower students to be physically active in a health-enhancing way. Therefore, using a competence-based approach, the objective of the health- and fitness-related PE intervention 'Promotion of physical activity-related health competence in PE' (GEKOS) was to address practical and theoretical content…

Equally able students have lower academic self-concept in high achieving schools or classes, a phenomenon known as the big fish little pond effect (BFLPE). The class (more so than the school) has been shown to be the pivotal frame-of-reference for academic self-concept formation--a local dominance effect. However, many school systems worldwide…

Students' academic achievement is a key predictor of various life outcomes and is commonly used for selection as well as for educational monitoring and accountability. With regard to achievement indicators, a differentiation has traditionally been drawn between grades and standardized tests. There is initial, albeit inconclusive, evidence that…

Many students suffer from motivational problems when doing homework. To investigate whether an intervention that effectively promoted value beliefs in mathematics promoted students' homework motivation and behavior, we analyzed data from a cluster randomized controlled study with two classroom-based relevance interventions (writing a text or…

Conscientiousness and interest are well-known predictors of academic effort and achievement. As hypothesized by the Conscientiousness × Interest Compensation (CONIC) model, conscientiousness and interest can (partly) compensate for each other, leading to (comparatively) high effort if either conscientiousness or interest is high. The present…

Previous research provides evidence that ratings from students and external observers can deliver reliable and valid measures of teaching quality. However, there is still a lack of research on how stable these measures are across time and classes, which is particularly important when they are used for evaluations. We addressed this issue in 3…

Relevance interventions have shown a great potential to foster motivation and achievement (Lazowski & Hulleman, 2016). Yet, further research is warranted to test how such interventions can be successfully implemented in practice. We conducted a cluster-randomized trial in ninth-grade math classrooms to test the effectiveness of a relevance…

According to dimensional comparison theory (DCT), students evaluate their ability in one domain (e.g., math) by comparing their achievement in that domain with their achievement in other domains (e.g., English). Primarily in research on students' academic self-concept, these comparison processes have been found to lead to positive associations…

The present study investigated to what degree teachers' personality traits, cognitive abilities, and academic abilities (high school GPA), which were assessed at the end of high school as well as grades from the first and second state examinations of teacher education, predict later instructional quality. The study combined ratings of…

Teachers' social support and classroom management are related to secondary students' achievement, domain-specific interest, and self-concept. However, little is known about whether social support and classroom management shape secondary students' general school adjustment beyond these domain-specific outcomes. To investigate this question, we drew…

In recent decades, several countries have made an effort to increase the enrollment rates and performance of students in science and mathematics by means of mandatory, rigorous course work, which is often referred to as curricular intensification (CI). However, there is a lack of research on intended and unintended effects of CI reforms on…

Expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation identifies two classes of beliefs that are important predictors of educational choices and achievement: expectancies and values. It is well known that high achieving peers can have a negative impact on self-concept and other measures of expected success: holding individual achievement constant,…

Expectancy-value theory (Eccles et al., 1983) is a prominent approach to explaining gender differences in math-related academic choices, with value beliefs acting as an important explanatory factor. Expectancy-value theory defines 4 value components: intrinsic value, attainment value, utility value, and cost. The present study followed up on…

Personality traits and social cognitive variables are central constructs in psychological research. It is often assumed that personality traits are less changeable than social cognitive variables, and thus interventions usually tend to focus on the latter. However, these assumptions about the mutability of personality and social cognitive…